Heating Problems at Several Springfield Schools

(Springfield, MO) -- The temperatures have been bone chilling lately and many are cranking up the heat to stay warm.

But in some Springfield school buildings where there was no heat in some classrooms on Monday.  The problem was widespread, affecting elementary, middle and high school students in all parts of Springfield.

In total, heat was down in classrooms in thirteen Springfield public school buildings.  The worst was at Horace Mann Elementary where one of the boilers ruptured.  It will have to be replaced.
     
Fortunately, Springfield schools has a used one in stock that it's going to try to get installed by Tuesday, the last day before students' holiday break.  

Even though heat went down completely in some classrooms, other areas of the school buildings were warm.  So, teachers used some creative scheduling to get around the problem..
   
So what caused the cold classrooms?  The cold temperatures.

"This wind was pretty strong.  We had a 15 degree windchill factor and that's a pretty good load to put on those schools.  Otherwise, we did pretty good." says Jim Dow, R-12 Director of Business Operations.

The heating problems in all the other schools beside Horace Mann were fixed on Monday.

The district says it can handle this kind of heating issue.  It's just hopeful this winter won't bring the third ice storm in a row where power is lost.