Following AC Meltdown in Baltimore, Hogan Orders School-by-School Audit

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From reporter Bruce DePuyt.

For two days, frustrated parents in Baltimore have been forced to retrieve their children from school on short notice due to back-to-back early dismissals. The reason: a lack of functioning air conditioning systems that made buildings unbearably hot.

On Wednesday, a visibly irritated Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) ordered Maryland’s top education officials to conduct a building-by-building review to determine which schools lack proper ventilation and air filtration systems.

Thirty-one city schools were forced to shut down early on Tuesday, the second day of class.

Speaking at the start of the bimonthly Board of Public Works meeting, Hogan hammered local officials for failing to ensure that every building was ready for the start of the new school year.

“It’s unbelievable to me that this is still happening after the Comptroller and I have worked together for the last six years to push to get every school air conditioned, and to provide record funding for every school to be air conditioned, and our nonstop efforts to hold schools accountable,” the governor said.

Although the state has provided more than $3 billion in pandemic-related school aid statewide, Hogan said, there are still un-air-conditioned schools, though “it’s unclear … which schools or school systems have properly utilized all these billions in funding.”

The governor said his administration has requested a list for “months,” to no avail.

“[W]e’re no longer asking,” he declared.

Hogan asked the state superintendent of schools and the Interagency Commission on School Construction “to immediately provide us a report on ventilation and air filtration systems, district by district and school by school, and we will be holding school systems accountable for these financial resources and the way that they have been utilized to ensure that safe and healthy environments are in our school buildings for all of our kids.”