According to Synergistic Energy Solutions, the company that the school works through, 80% of the people in the building will be comfortable, 10% will be too cold and 10% will be too warm.

Even though the temperature seems to fluctuate, energy director Dave Beason says the temperature should remain fairly constant.

“(The temperature) was decided by the school board,” Beason said. “They went by the recommendation of the energy company that we are working through. Their recommendation was we set temperatures between 68 and 72 in classrooms so that’s what we’ve done.”

At night, because no students are in the school, it is cooled down to 55 degrees. In the morning, the building is heated back up at different times in different parts of the building in order to avoid overheating the building.

“We’re not trying to freeze anybody in the building,” Beason said. “We are trying to keep the building comfortable but it is wintertime and students need to dress for the winter.”

Some rooms go from very hot to very cold throughout the day, like math teacher’s Steve Smith’s room.

“The heat runs for only a certain amount of time then recirculates the air the rest of the day,” Smith said. “Which really means the fan runs and not more heat is pumped in.”

The problem was that the stat buried into the wall is slow to read what is going on with the temperature. Because the school is cooled overnight, in the morning the stat heats up the room very quickly and it overshoots 72 degrees. To counter that, it starts blowing cool air to get the temperature back down to 72 degrees.

“It gets this crazy thing going back and forth like that,” Beason said. “As long as I know there’s a room going haywire like that we can work to fix it but if no one tells us, we don’t know.”

Because the problem was addressed in Smith’s room, Beason and custodians were able to try to fix the problem.

“After Mr. Beason spent time in my room, he had to set the heat a little higher,” Smith said. “I wouldn’t say it’s fixed, but it is a little warmer for a little longer period of time. It will be an ongoing process to get the temperature controlled. It’s not like a home.”

Using a digital thermometer, temperatures were recorded around the school throughout a two week period. Many temperatures change during the day and all temperatures listed were taken during second and third period.