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Students, teachers frustrated over ongoing heating issues at Lowell High School

LOWELL, Mass. — Cold classrooms are frustrating students and teachers in Lowell.

It's been an issue for more than a year as the heating systems in the old buildings need constant repairs. Some students tell us a lot of classrooms have been fixed, but as soon as one gets heat back, another classroom will lose it and they're constantly moving to other classrooms to stay warm.

"My history class was absolutely freezing," said student Katrina Wilensky.

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Katrina says she loves going to Lowell High School, but come winter, it's not always easy. Recently, her history class lost heat, but she says as soon as it was fixed, another classroom will go cold, like the library on Tuesday.

"We went back into my history room today since we were supposed to be using the computers in the library, but instead we just brought the laptops back in the room because it was cold in the library," said Wilensky.

Students say it's a constant problem, but it seemed worse a couple months ago.

"Kids were really upset because certain rooms were like 46 degrees like my theater class was 46 degrees," said Wilensky.

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Paul Georges is the President of the United Teachers of Lowell. He says he's received hundreds of complaints of heating issues at Lowell High School just this winter.

"It's a chronic problem that compromises the quality of the education the kids are getting in the school system," said Georges. "We all have accountability issues through the state MCAS all the rest it's very difficult to disrupt them and have to move kids if kids are worried about being too cold in a classroom."

Georges says it's been a problem for more than a year now throughout the district so he contacted the state department of labor standards to investigate the issue, but it's unclear when they will see a longterm solution.

"Bridging the gap between now and when that happens is the problem we deal with on a daily basis," said Georges.

In the meantime, students like Wilensky will continue to bring extra layers to school just in case another classroom goes cold.

"It is an issue because it's an old school. It's just to be expected which I understand, but sometimes it's hard to focus," said Wilensky.

Boston 25 News reached out to the superintendent's office multiple times for comment. The office tells us they are not aware of any heating issues at the high school Tuesday.

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