As some people may remember the heat during the days September 4th through the 9th were sometimes as hot as 100℉ or higher here at South El Monte High school. During those days it was so excessively hot that there were many broken AC’s reported by teachers whose rooms were getting too hot to be in. One teacher Ms. Sylivia Casillas had stated that she was very lucky to have a working AC as many other classes had not been as fortunate as her to have a working AC. 

Another teacher, Ms. Marias Frias, who was less fortunate than others to have a dysfunctional AC that day, had stated that “The current heat has made it extremely difficult to do anything outside.” To add to this when AC’s started to fail in many rooms, many were battling heat exhaustion because most of the time it was too hot to concentrate on the task at hand. Many teachers due to the excessive heat in their classrooms had either decided to switch classrooms to a class that had AC, or just ended up in the cafeteria. A teacher that ended up teaching in the cafeteria stated, “Definitely not an ideal place for teaching but at that point we were just trying to stay cool.”

Teacher Ms. Patricia Van Empel had also voiced their thoughts saying that, “The air conditioning going out taught us a few things.… we have a fabulous maintenance staff that handled the problem quickly, and we’re kind of spoiled, because two classes without A/C almost broke me.” You can see how huge of an issue this was for the classes that had no AC because some classes without AC got so hot it was 80-90 degrees. The maintenance staff as mentioned was also very quick to respond to the issue, having the AC fixed by the end of the day when they had been reported as not working.

Many students were also hindered by the recent heat, as many had to move classrooms to either a cooler classroom or to the cafeteria which made it harder to learn. Freshman Brandon Casasola stated, “I’m wearing shorts and a short sleeve shirt, and I still feel like I’m in the middle of the desert.” Another freshman, Donny Gomez, expressed that “Due to the hot weather, it hindered my ability to learn and to do my work to the best of my abilities.. ” Students and staff stayed cool and drank lots of water that week as recommended by the heat wave advisories that were prevalent the entire week this was going on. Now let’s hope the weather cools down and we don’t get this type of heat again.