“This is basic dignity we’re asking for,” said Brandon Daley. The high school senior at Metropolitan Business Academy was speaking to the Board of Alders Education Committee on Tuesday night about school building conditions across New Haven Public Schools (NHPS). He was one of nearly 30 students, teachers, parents, and advocates to offer public testimony to alders that night, at a hearing on school facilities that drew about 100 people to the Board of Alders chamber of City Hall. Students said they avoid using the bathroom at school and worry about how breathing mold now might affect them when they’re older. Teachers spoke of fundraising to clean mold from musical instruments, discarding blankets and stuffed animals infested with rodent feces, and developing medical complications, including a miscarriage, that may have been triggered by sweltering classroom temperatures. Several teens and adults brought manila envelopes full of photographic evidence to hand to alders. Fourteen alders attended most or all of the four-and-a-half-hour hearing. According to New Haven Federation of Teachers President Leslie Blatteau, the union has filed 52 grievances pertaining to facilities since Aug. 26, 2026. Blatteau said that 16 of those grievances are HVAC-related. Of the 36 non-HVAC complaints, she said, “14 have received an initial response.” NHPS Chief of School Operations Paul Whyte said that the district has received 710 facilities work orders since Aug. 31. He said that “many have been closed,” but that not every work order status has been accurately updated, so he isn’t certain of how many of those work orders have actually been addressed. The hearing took place immediately before ABM Industry Groups LLC, the company contracted to manage school facilities, departs from its current role in the district. NHPS has sought to transition to an in-house facilities management system — although a newly-appointed facilities director ended up leaving his role before the school year even started, and the role is now vacant. According to Whyte, the school district plans for some ABM staff members to continue on as direct NHPS employees. There will be a net loss of two managers, Whyte said. NHPS Supt. Madeline Negrón called for more funding to grow an in-house facilities team capable of handling the volume of building concerns. “The one thing that I want to do is to be able to give our students what they deserve, and they all deserve it,” said Negrón. “They know the reality is on the ground. They live it every single day.” “No child should be in the conditions that we have children in,” she said. “Nothing that has been said tonight is disputed,” echoed Whyte. “It is all work that has to be done.” Negrón said that NHPS currently spends about $1.70 per square foot on maintenance per year. The industry standard, she said, is to spend at least $3 to $4.50 per square foot. Meanwhile, some school community members said they have lost faith that their reports of poor conditions will be adequately acknowledged and addressed. “Those work orders feel like screaming into a void,” said Karlee Ciarcia, a middle school English teacher at Truman School. Hot Classrooms Jeopardize Health High school seniors Abdellah Aly and Lester McClease join their peers in advocating for healthy school conditions. In between descriptions of rodent and insect infestations, black mold, and broken water fountains, Ciarcia described how a broken HVAC system left her teaching in temperatures “anywhere from 80 to 90 degrees.” “Since coming to work at Truman, I’ve been diagnosed with a migraine disorder, made worse by heat,” Ciarcia said. “At one point, I was getting debilitating migraines at least once a week that lasted around two days. One migraine lasted over 7 days and got so bad that my doctor sent me to the ER. The heat was the cause.” Ciarcia said she has been able to control the migraines with a new medication. She worries most about her students, she said. “On hot days, students have trouble keeping their heads up and constantly complain about the heat. If they aren’t falling asleep, they’re asking to get water every three minutes,” said Ciarcia. “I’m lucky enough to have a working water fountain in my current room,” but she said that other classrooms do not have functional water fountains. “Last spring,” said Ciarcia, “I sent at least one student to the nurse every day due to headaches, dizziness, or lethargy. Most would beg the nurse for bags of ice that they could use to cool themselves down.” “To deal with this heat,” she said, “I have three fans running. As you can imagine, that gets quite loud, and we have to yell to hear each other.” She has to choose whether or not to open her classroom windows, which in the past has enabled wasps to enter the classroom and derail lessons. “If I want to keep them closed,” she said, “there are no shades to block the sun from beating into the room.” Kathleen Lupoli, a sixth grade teacher at Bishop Woods School, also described a moldy, malfunctioning HVAC. “Every other month, an HVAC technician walks into the room,” she said. “They look up at my ceiling. They go onto the roof. I never see them again. Somebody new comes in the next month. It’s a revolving door.” Lupoli said that without a working HVAC system, her classroom has reached 90 degrees — including while she has been pregnant. She said that she recently had an unexpected miscarriage during a particularly sweltering week in her classroom. “It dawned on me,” Lupoli said, that the miscarriage coincided with “being in a room where I was told that I need to keep my door locked. There’s no airflow. It’s now reaching a temperature of 90 degrees. The humidity is disgusting…” Research backs up her intuition that prolonged heat exposure can cause pregnancy complications, though she said she doesn’t know for certain whether her classroom conditions triggered the miscarriage. Mold On Musical Instruments Some of the 14 alders present at Tuesday’s committee meeting. Students and teachers also expressed concern about how moldy infrastructure and rodent infestations might impact their health. Hillhouse sophomore Sarah Butavia expressed concern that “when the moisture builds up inside the ceiling, mold grows, and students are breathing in that air eight hours a day.” “This is not something that causes issues immediately. This is something that causes long-term health problems that don’t show up until later on in life,” Butavia said. Mauro Sheridan music teacher Marissa Iezzi said that the band room at her her school has had recurring mold for the past five years. “I’ve reported it every single year,” she said. “In recent years, painters have come in and they’ve scraped it, they’ve repainted it. But the moisture continues — and guess what? The mold keeps coming back.” Every year, she said, “I’m fundraising from my rich friends” to personally fund professional mold removal from the school instruments. “We’re talking over $10,000.” At the end of each school year, she said, “I buy silicone gel packets to put inside the cases, and I wrap all 180 instruments in plastic in preparation for the summer.” She wants to “protect my students,” she said, “from having to put that in their mouth, or up to their face.” Recently, according to Iezzi, the district has taken more proactive action. School staff discovered behind the sound panels, under a countertop and cabinet, in the carpeting. “This has all been removed,” Iezzi said. “They also removed the drywall, the sheetrock, down to the brick, and it’s down to wires, and beams. This was over a week ago, and we haven’t seen anything happening since then.” “We have people with exacerbated asthma, breathing conditions, respiratory complications” flaring up due to school facilities, said Blatteau, who urged school staff members to document any such experiences with Occupational Health. Mice On Preschool Mats Rebecca Mickelson, a Pre-K teacher at Reginald Mayo School, described a pervasive rodent infestation at the school throughout the 2025-2026 school year. When teachers came back for the new school year this August, she said, “it was clear that nobody had addressed the problem at all, as some staff members found dead mice in the midst of their belongings on their return.” “Our students are 3 to 5 years old,” Mickelson said, “and spend much of their day sitting, playing, and sleeping on or close to the floor. Hands, toys, and other loose items found on the floor on it would inevitably end up in their mouths.” Mickelson said that she and her colleagues have tried to get rid of plants and food throughout the classrooms, along with any other toys that might attract rodents. “Unwashable items, such as upholstered child furniture, and stuffed animals are thrown out. Students are no longer able to keep their napping blankets in the classroom safely,” Mickelson said. She said that the district got rid of classroom rugs, procured by the district in 2023. “This eliminated the designated place for students to sit for instruction, and they are now sitting on the hard floor throughout their school day.” Teachers were provided “a set of smaller floor cushions to use on the floor as a substitute,” Mickelson said. “While appreciated, these are far less practical for preschoolers and still cannot be laundered.” Students To School Leaders: “I Am Asking For Transparency” Over the course of the evening, a group of high school students from across the city cheered one another on as they called on the adults responsible for their school system to do better. “I am not claiming that money is being wasted without evidence,” said Metro student Lester McClease. “I am asking for transparency. Where is the facility funding being spent?” He called on the disrict to “provide regular updates about delayed projects, emergency repairs, safety concerns, and major systems, such as heating, pulling, ventilation, employment, and electrical equipment.” “The community should not have to wait for a crisis, or rely on rumors,” to know what’s going on, McClease said. “I didn’t even realize anybody cared enough to have a meeting on this issue,” said Wilbur Cross student Dorothea Myers. “I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that using the bathroom at school is something I avoid a lot,” Myers said. “One of the bathrooms in my girls’ bathroom does not have a lock on it,” said Co-Op student Jael Phillips. “What are we supposed to do about that? What are we supposed to do? If a lockdown happens and a child is stuck in the bathroom, what happens then?” “When students are saying ‘My classroom is too hot’, that’s not just complaining,” insisted Metro senior Daley. “I’m tired of being told to accept conditions that adults would never accept,” he said. Mayor: “There is a lot more work to do.” While Mayor Justin Elicker was not present at Tuesday’s hearing, he offered the following statement on Wednesday morning: “There is widespread agreement that our students and educators should have safe, healthy, high-quality school buildings and classroom environments that support teaching and learning and help our school communities thrive. There is also widespread agreement that our schools have been underfunded for decades and that underinvestment has created real challenges in New Haven Public Schools’ ability to maintain our aging school facilities and it’s resulted in unacceptable conditions in many of our schools. While our school buildings are regularly inspected to ensure they meet code-required life-safety requirements, that’s a minimum standard — and that’s not what we want to provide our students and teachers. Like any large residential or commercial property, maintaining school buildings requires adequate staffing, materials and systems to ensure facilities and maintenance issues are promptly and properly addressed – and, right now, that simply doesn’t exist at New Haven Public Schools. That’s why New Haven has been leading the charge with our state delegation, other municipalities and partners to dramatically increase state funding for our public schools. And, that’s why, so many city departments are working to support Dr. Negrón and her team in developing a new school facilities management plan. We’ve made some significant progress and investments in recent years – including upgrades and renovations to the Wilbur Cross High School Athletic Complex and the Floyd Little Athletic Complex at Hillhouse High School – but there is a lot more work to do and it’s going to require all of us working together to make that happen.” The post “Like Screaming Into A Void”: Students, Teachers Decry Health Hazards In Schools appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less