LAKELAND, Fla. — Students at more than a dozen Polk County schools showed up at school Friday to find classrooms without air conditioning.

According to Polk Education Association (PEA) President Stephanie Yocum, temperatures inside some of the classrooms have been sitting around 85 to 90 degrees for the past week.

PEA called the conditions unbearable and said students cannot be expected to concentrate in a classroom that is too hot.

“We are expecting them to meet academic standards, and that can’t be done when we are sweating to death in these rooms,” Yocum said. “We are calling on the district to take action on this because what they have done is not enough.”

Yocum said the union filed a grievance against the Polk County School District stating that the air conditioning is broken or malfunctioning, and nothing has been done to fix the units ahead of the first day of school.

The schools outlined in the grievance include: Davenport School of the Arts, Blake Academy, Lake Gibson Middle School, Spessard Holland Elementary, North Lakeland Elementary School, Socrum Elementary, Horizon Elementary, George Jenkins High School, Sandhill Elementary School, Alturus Elementary School and Bartow Middle School, among others.

“We have everything from ACs that are just completely broken and then the answer is, ‘Oh well, the work order is in, … but we don’t have the parts to fix it.’ Or ‘the work order is in, and we have the parts but we have no one to come out and fix it,’” Yocum described. 

The Polk County schools district says it is working on getting HVAC crews in to fix the broken AC units and bringing in portable units in the meantime. They’re also moving students from hot classrooms to the ones with working air.