The continuous battle for air
October 9, 2019
The continuous battle for air
For many years we have had many different groups try to help our heat issue at Jenison high school. Our academics have suffered because of this, we need to find a solution. In the past ten years, we have fought through the heat of the day, which appears to be hotter every year. We need to re-evaluate our pros and cons to fixing the air conditioning and solving the matter in a different way.
Twenty years have gone by, and there were many teachers who have brought up the issue of heat in the school. A teacher I interviewed said that from the day he started at Jenison every department meeting they had, they suggested planting trees outside every classroom to provide shade to the classroom while keeping the airflow. The board appears to cast away the request every time the matter comes up. After many years, as in ten or so years, they stopped trying to present the issue and a solution.
Many of our fellow students expressed their concerns and they all appeared to be on the same side. Talking to every class freshmen to seniors they all say that it makes it challenging to focus and you feel tired. Also, many of them actually like the heat, just not in school.
Our school is far behind other schools according to our building conditions. Hudsonville and Grandville both have new buildings and air conditioning. It is understandable that we do not get much funding from the state to rebuild or install new air conditioning, but something needs to be done. We get funded from the state for the fine arts center, which according to the news when it was built, it was around twenty million dollars. This mater is not all our school executives’ fault, it is the state that does not fund us for everything that we need they just give us money for specifics.
Another reason it is difficult for us to rebuild our building or redo part of it is that we have nowhere to go. While construction starts, where do we go to school? Jenison is landlocked, which means that all the land that we have in our district is occupied. Also, there are more older people in our community than younger ones. This makes it challenging for us to expand or rebuild in a different location. There is not a way to fix the landlocked matter, but we could use incentives to help people move or provide help assisting in the search of new land.
There are many different options to fix our heat issue, which some were brought up. One option would be to plant trees outside the windows of the classrooms to provide shade and a breeze to still flow through. Another option would have industrial fans at the end of each hallway in the morning blowing the cool air of the morning through the school to air it out. We could also leave the fans running throughout the day. In all, there clearly is an issue and there are many options. For the sake of our fellow students we need to find a solution.