Unsent Letters

Dear SFUSD Facilities,

Indeed, a boiler room flooding at 2 PM is an "act of God".

However, fixing the boiler at 3 PM yet choosing not to reset the heating system, apparently to avoid overtime costs, is not an "act of God".  (It is by your own admission not an act of safety, either.)

It is an act that will cause frigid air to blow into classrooms all afternoon, evening, and night, so that they are barely above 50 degrees F the next morning.

Children and adults should not be subject to endure in such conditions until several emergency calls the next morning rouse you to send a technician.

Moreover, it is a fiscally stupid decision, because - as you know, since you have received a signed document stating it - one of those classrooms is led by a teacher who will suffer severe pain and nerve damage from exposure to such temperatures in the classroom.

I assume that in the future you will take my health and safety seriously.  My five years in SFUSD have taught me that freezing children don't raise any eyebrows, but I figure that potential litigation might.

Best,

E. Rat
on behalf of her hands and feet, which should really not be all clawed and witchy at her age.

P.S.  I sent a kid home that day with a fever of 102.5.  How do you think the frosty classroom was for that child?  Or for my classroom animals?  Even when it's not enough days for a Williams complaint, children still suffer.  They can't wait for you to decide to put in a better heating system.



I actually got to deliver this to the Heating Manager myself by phone...after explaining that no, it would really have to be the Heating Boss himself to whom I spoke.  This was necessary because it will no longer be possible for the Heating Office to be unaware that I actually have a medical reason - doctor-verified and everything - why I cannot be in an unheated classroom.  Nor will the Heating Boss note, "But your site hasn't had any heating problems this year, right?" when the truth is we spent two weeks without heat waiting for a part to come from Georgia - former Soviet Republic I assume given the wait - and another week for unknown reasons, and then several days here and there.  The Heating Boss also admitted that the classrooms in question are not supposed to use space heaters, since the electrical system can't handle them.  Perhaps they need to buy us a lot of those foot warmer thingies.