Baltimore Teachers Classrooms Students No Heat

Source: Lise Gagne / Getty

According to the Baltimore Sun, the Baltimore Teachers Union is urging the city to shut down all of its schools until officials fix the heating problems that have already closed some of their buildings and left some children freezing in others.

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“I implore that you close schools in the District until your facilities crew has had time to properly assess and fix the heating issues within the affected schools in Baltimore City,” Baltimore Teachers Union President Marietta English wrote in a letter to the school system’s CEO, Sonja Santelises.

She added: “This is the best way to ensure the safety of our members and our children.”

Even worse? Students in some of the city’s schools were forced to wear winter coats, hats, and gloves on Wednesday just to get their daily lessons.

#SHAME

Jesse Schneiderman of B’More’s Frederick Douglass High School told the Balitmore Brew that the school environment was “miserable.”

“The kids had their coats, hats and gloves on all day,” he said, adding that several teachers had to move their classes to the library so that they could have heat.

That, and the flooding from a burst pipe had ruined one of the classrooms with warped floor tiles and drenched papers.

“A teacher in our basement, because her room is under the flooded classroom, lost all of her materials,” he said. “Other teachers had to teach in the library because their classrooms were too cold.”

Sigh.

Another teacher, Jeffrey San Filippo, who teaches at Calverton Elementary/Middle School Tweeted that temperatures in his classroom didn’t get higher than 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

https://twitter.com/JeffSanFilippo/status/948275511825960961

“From 7 a.m. until 2:40 p.m., when school dismissed, it never warmed up,” San Filippo said.

After being roasted on social media, Santelises addressed the outrage saying about only a third of Baltimore schools were affected by the cold—approximately 60 buildings. She also claimed that many of the heating issues were addressed by BCPS staff on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the kids are not alright.

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