Chelmsford teachers want cold classrooms fixed

CHELMSFORD, Mass. — Chelmsford teachers are asking the town to turn up the heat in their classrooms.

"You want to wear your jacket. You wear fleece, jacket, scarf, sometimes fingerless gloves,” said Marie O'Donnell, Byam School kindergarten teacher.

All that clothing isn’t for outdoor recess, but for normal classroom activity – the classrooms often dip to 50 degrees. Last year, the teacher’s union purchased thermometers to measure how cold it was inside, that way, they say they could snap a picture and have evidence to show town officials.

"Really the air that's blowing on the children and teachers is too cold,” said O’Donnell, who is also the vice president of the teacher's union.

O’Donnell says teachers throughout Chelmsford have been complaining about the extreme temperatures ever since the district updated it’s heating and air system three years ago.

This week, the teacher union’s president, Jennifer Salmon, took the complaints to the town manager, and the meeting became contentious.

"I'm not here to point fingers. I'm really sorry if you feel this way. What I'm here to do is talk about the problems so that we can find solutions,” said Salmon.

Paul Cohen, the Chelmsford town manager, interrupted her, saying, "You should have come and seen me.”

Cohen admits there have been problems with temperature control in some of the classrooms, but he disagrees with the size of the problem. He says the teacher’s union is grandstanding.

"Every time there is an issue we all get emailed and then you get contacted because, 'Oh my gosh, there's a room today that is not temperature compliant,’” he said.

Cohen did say the town has received 81 complaints from cold faculty members just this school year.

"Of course that's not acceptable, but it's not common place. Am I going to sit here and say, 'No, there isn't a situation where there's a problem with the temperature in the given room on a given room,’ that a child's teacher wouldn't say, ‘Hey, put your coats on until this thing is corrected for a couple hours.’ Sure. But to have this portrayed that kids can't take penmanship because every day they have mittens on is a gross exaggeration,” said Cohen.

The town is hiring an outside engineer to review the heating system, but a fix may be months away. In the meantime, winter is coming.

"My children are young so they might not be able to articulate how they're feeling and so a lot of times I invite them to put on their jacket when I know that they're cold,” said O’Donnell.

The town is also retraining its custodians to gauge how cold the rooms get and then report back. The board of selectman will discuss the problem at their next meeting, Dec. 19.

Cox Media Group