BARTOW, Fla. — The Polk Education Association teachers union says hundreds of classrooms are still without air conditioning.
Their key demand is now getting a timeline as to when repairs will be made to all the air conditioning units at Polk County schools.
President of Polk Education Association Stephanie Yocum said, "While they've closed out 755 work orders as of Friday, they're still almost 700 still open."
Tuesday evening, union members waited through a four-hour school board meeting to make their concerns about the air conditioning problems heard.
Bartow High School Teacher Elizabeth Rasmussen said, "I urge you to listen to faculty and staff members on how to make changes as we approach this A/C issue."
Since the start of the month, the district said it has been working overtime to tackle the repairs.
"I am grateful to our staff who have worked tirelessly to address these concerns," School Board Vice Chair Dr. William Allen said. "We definitely want to have a comfortable space for our teachers and students."
The sense of urgency sparked by a formal grievance, filed by the local teacher's union two weeks ago.
"They're working as fast as they can. I do believe we both have a vested interest in getting these classrooms fixed and cooled down as soon as possible," Yocum said.
However, Yocum is also calling for the district to look beyond any quick fixes, ensuring cool days in the future.
"If they're serious about addressing the issue, they have to start looking at these job descriptions, A/C tech wages and then looking at all the other things that they can do throughout the summer and changing some of these policies around the A/C to fix this so this doesn't continue to happen," Yocum said.
Yocum said they expect to have answers about the timeline for fixes by next Monday at the latest.