With most of the high schools in the county getting brand new air-conditioners, West Shore students are beginning to wonder where their new air-conditioner units are.

In 2014, parents and citizens of the county approved a half-cent sales tax in order to rebuild the schools and save schools from closure. According to Assistant Principal Catherine Halbuer, the district created a list of schools for who would get new air-conditioners first. The list is based on need. West Shore was placed at the bottom of the priority list because the district claimed the school’s information was incomplete.

Dane Theodore, Assistant Superintendent of Facilities Services for the School Board said  West Shore’s need information was not properly transferred onto the list, and that West Shore has moved up the list due to other schools receiving their air-conditioners already. He also said if schools have specific and a dire necessity for special air-conditioner unit projects, then the district will go out and fix those problems first.

The cost of the air-conditioner units vary depending on where in the school they are put, but the one that was installed near Building 5 was roughly $60,000 and the coil that was replaced in the auditorium air-conditioner unit was $7,000. The district is in charge of paying for the replacement units and parts and contract the job out to various contractors, Halbuer said.

However, with broken air-conditioners comes hot classrooms and therefore disruption.

“It feels like being in a boiler room,” junior Wiley Jones said “The county needs to hire new technicians who will actually fix the units.”

When the units break teachers have the choice to stay in their classroom or to move their students to a cooler room, which is usually the media center. The remain-in-the-classroom option seldom is popular.

“I can’t think due to the heat,” junior Morgan Stewart said. ” Usually I get really grumpy and angry.”

By Cortney Vanover