ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – As the days get hotter, Albuquerque Public Schools’ teachers and students are finding it harder to cool down.

“No matter when we start and when we end, our schools need to be upgraded so that  we have comfortable teaching and learning conditions,” said Ellen Bernstein, president of the Albuquerque Teachers Federation. 

Bernstein says the union has collected more than 100 anonymous testimonials. Teachers are citing hot classrooms as a barrier to learning. 

“There is research that supports that kids don’t learn as well, they don’t take assessments as well, that it impacts everything about teaching and learning when the conditions are uncomfortable,” said Bernstein. 

KOB 4 wanted to hear from new APS Superintendent Gabriella Durán Blakey about the issues.

“We put in about $26 million into HVAC, $6 million into repairs for HVAC, and then we have $7 billion of infrastructure needs,” said Blakey. 

Despite these repairs, various classrooms at Rio Grande High School are still sweating it out.

Multiple parents told us it’s an ongoing issue that still has not been fixed. 

“I don’t know anything about specific schools, our system overall we have about 10% of our schools that have a work order in for one classroom or a section of classrooms. We don’t have any schools that are completely out of air conditioning, so I don’t have the details on specific schools,” said Blakey. 

The superintendent says anyone in a hot classroom should take their concerns to the principal, from there the issue should be fixed within a couple of days.

“We have over 143 school buildings so we have a lot of evaporative cooling and so this next week we will see a huge difference in the efficiency of those systems because the weather will be dropping in temperature,” said Blakey.