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Saturday, August 27, 2016

Franchot Says Baltimore County Schools' Heat Closing 'Embarassing'

Baltimore County schools are making use of their new heat closing policy, but state Comptroller Peter Franchot, long a crusader for air conditioning in Baltimore city and county schools, says it's "embarrassing" it came to this point.

"All of those could have been avoided five years ago with a minimal amount of money on box air conditioning units," he told WBAL talk host C4 in an interview. "For whatever reason, Baltimore County has dragged its feet."

With temperatures well into the 90s and heat indices flirting with triple digits in the Baltimore area, 37 Baltimore County schools still without central air are closed, but the 40 city schools in the same situation remain open.

In May, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, at risk of losing state capital funding for schools,announced plans to fund central air in the county schools still without it by August 2018. However, Franchot charges the county is behind schedule in its implementation of that plan.

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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maybe they should wait till after labor day to start school.

Anonymous said...

And this is the county that spends the most per student of any in the state, something like $21,000. Where does it go? Who's running this show, anyway?

Anonymous said...

put some fans over a large bucket of ice. It'll work keeping em kool. It's also inexpensive & more than we had when we were in school.

Anonymous said...

I went to school and never had air conditioning. Why do they need AC these days? You let them stay home if the temperatures are hot that day and guess what they will do? They will be at the closest backboard playing African American Ball. They will be outside playing in the heat anyway.