When Clifton Williams’ phone rang last week, he answered a call no school facilities director wants to receive: The air-conditioning at Durham’s Hillside High School stopped working. With temperatures soaring to nearly 100 degrees, the timing couldn’t have been worse.
The intense heat wave left Williams and his crew scrambling to determine how to act quickly to keep the more than 1,400 students and staff safe from the heat.
“Unfortunately, it was a building-wide outage,” Williams, executive director of facilities for Durham Public Schools, told NC Local. “We found that one of the fuses was bad [in the chiller], and it would take some time to get the fuse and also cool the school down.”
With no quick fix available, Hillside school leaders sent students home at 1:15 p.m. on Sept. 2. Williams’ technicians got the air conditioning running by 4 p.m. that day, but it still took several hours to cool the overheated school.
Hillside was one of many North Carolina schools affected by last week’s heat wave. In neighboring Wake County, five public schools offered to let parents pick up their children early due to the rising temperatures inside the buildings, according to the school system. In Western North Carolina, Murphy High School closed one day earlier this month due to HVAC issues, WLOS reported.
North Carolina does not have a statewide policy to determine when temperatures should warrant sending students home early. Individual district leaders make calls on a case-by-case basis.
However, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association does have guidelines for student athletes participating in after-school sports. Practices can be canceled based on the temperature, heat index and humidity.
Fans, finances and aging HVAC systems
Public schools rely on a number of factors to keep building temperatures regulated, including buying new HVAC systems, fixing outdated or broken ones and in some cases, bringing in fans to keep students and staff comfortable.
Each school system faces its own unique challenges to keep kids cool. Budgetary constraints, different funding sources, maintenance staffing and aging HVAC systems all play a role.
By law, local county governments are responsible for maintaining school buildings, including HVACs, while the state government mostly funds instructional needs. Local leaders sometimes turn to bond referendums on local ballots, state lottery funds and state or federal grants to help with costs, but that still doesn’t cover all the needs.
The most recent North Carolina K-12 school facility needs report, which is released every five years, found that the highest dollar value of renovations needed was for heating and air conditioning work.
Experts say the problem goes beyond students feeling too warm in class. A 2025 study by PLOS Climate examined data from 14.5 million students in 61 countries and found that exposure to high temperatures during school significantly affected student performance.
“Exposure to elevated temperatures, coupled with demanding cognitive tasks, can hinder students’ performance through various physiological mechanisms,” according to the study. “These include disruptions in body temperature regulation, temperature-sensitive brain chemistry, and alterations in the brain’s electrical properties, ultimately impairing its ability to function effectively under heat stress.”
‘Families may have concerns’
In Wake County public schools, the central office sets school thermostats to 69 degrees in the winter and 74 degrees in the warmer months.
But a recent WRAL News investigation found that more than one-third of the county’s 200 public schools had a documented heating or air conditioning maintenance issue during their health inspection. Some parents said 80 degrees was common in some classrooms at their children’s schools.
During last week’s heat wave, some parents and community members posted on Reddit, an online forum, to share complaints and updates about the air conditioning problems at local schools.
“The AC is completely out for hillside and we are expected to have class,” one person wrote. “These are unsafe conditions for children.”
As temperatures rose, principals across the state notified parents about hotter-than-normal classrooms. A sample of emails from Wake County public schools’ principals shows some of the challenges they faced during the heat wave:
Apex Elementary School:
“We are making efforts not to use spaces with a temperature of 80 degrees or higher. Families will be notified if we are not able to accommodate this plan.”
East Wake Magnet High School:
“We understand that the warmer-than-preferred temperatures can be uncomfortable for our students and staff … We also understand that some families may have concerns about sending their student to school while these HVAC issues continue.”
Fuller Magnet Elementary School:
“Both of our chillers are down. Maintenance crews are en route to try to restore one of them. However, we are waiting on parts needed to repair the second chiller. This has led to warm temperatures throughout our building.”
Green Level High School:
“We are having AC issues … One chiller has a major failure and needs to be replaced. The other chiller has an intermittent failure and requires an invasive repair … We are using fans, relocating classes to cooler areas of the building, adjusting blinds, providing additional water breaks, etc.”
Millbrook High School:
“Upon arrival this morning, school personnel noticed that many of our classrooms and building spaces were hot. An emergency work order was entered for the district to assist.”
Wildwood Forest Magnet Elementary School:
“We have experienced recurring issues this week with our two chillers. After being reset, they provide cool air for a period of time but then require another reset. This has led to warm temperatures throughout our building.”
School facility staff ‘doing the best we can’
In Durham Public Schools, Williams and his crew of technicians monitor individual schools remotely using a building control system. They set temperatures at 70 degrees. Schools with updated HVAC equipment have more control and can adjust their temperature up or down within 3 degrees.
When HVAC problems pop up, like the issues Hillside High School experienced last week, Williams’ team tries to fix the issue as quickly as possible, but it’s not always easy to predict where the next problem will occur.
“Hillside was working fine the day before,” Williams said. “You’d be surprised that some of the newer [HVAC equipment] cannot last as long as some of the older stuff sometimes.”
Williams has a crew of anywhere from nine to 11 technicians who maintain 60 buildings across Durham County, including administrative offices and schools containing more than 31,000 students.
He urges students, parents and staff to be patient with technicians who are traveling around the county fixing HVAC issues to keep kids safe.
“Our team is really focused on getting the students in the classroom and making the buildings as comfortable as possible,” Williams said. “We have like 5,000 individual classrooms in our district. You’re not going to have every single one of them right all the time, but you want to respond in a way that makes people know that they feel heard.”
“If it’s a major safety concern, we make decisions pretty quickly,” he added. “Our team is doing the best that we can.”
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