Omaha parents, teachers turn up the heat on district over AC problems in classrooms 

Parents and teachers at Omaha Public Schools (OPS) have been increasing pressure on the district to address air conditioning issues following several incidents concerning their children’s classrooms.

“When I was there, you know, a couple of weeks ago, it was hotter than heck. Like, my husband and I were sweating,” Abby Waller told First Alert 6 of her son’s Dundee Elementary classroom.

“If four or five schools in the district are having this problem, there’s a problem. I hate it, I hate being negative towards OPS, but y’all, they’ve got to do something, you know?”

Meanwhile, a teacher who wanted to remain anonymous described the experience of having work orders go unaddressed after sweltering in a hot classroom in the middle of August.

“After weeks without a fix, the teacher said they were told maintenance was waiting on a part and the issue was not a priority,” First Alert 6 noted.

The district, which enrolls more than 50,000 students across 112 schools, blamed capacity and lack of staffing for the incidents.

“There’s never going to be enough people,” said Matt Wulff, electrical foreman at the district. “There’s so much work here with 100 buildings that are 50, 60, 70 years old. I mean, we never finish all our workloads, they’re just coming every day.”

Wulff estimated he receives between 20-40 work orders a day.

“We just get them done – prioritize them the best we can, but I’ll never get everything done with the guys I have.”

Charles Wakefield, the district’s chief operating officer, acknowledged it was “challenging” to get rooms at the right temperature for everyone.

“We have thousands of AC units that we’re trying to maintain across the district. So we may have a wing or a classroom that’s perfectly comfortable, and right next to it, some place that’s not because a unit’s gone down,” he told journalists.

‘Always without AC’

Across the nation, other districts are experiencing maintenance backlogs and infrastructure problems at a time of plunging public school enrollment.

For example, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland received approximately 700 emergency work orders in the 2026 fiscal year for infrastructure spanning more than 26 million square feet.

“We were always without AC,” said Jess Bain, a fifth-grade teacher, during a board meeting this summer. “No learning happens when kids are drooping.”

Meanwhile, in Albuquerque, inadequate heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems have been raising health concerns “for nearly 20 years,” according to the local television station.

Annette Lucero described her experience of seeing her grandchild “all flushed, drenched in sweat” from time in the classroom after undergoing heart surgery.

“She was a little weak and the heat was affecting her, and we called to ask what was going on,” she recalled. “They said that they didn’t have [a] problem – they had a fan.

“How can they study or learn or be comfortable when it’s not heating or not cooling?”