Message about Air Conditioning at GGUSD

Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Board of Education, Modernization

Garden Grove Unified School District is one of several districts in the county where the majority of schools are not air-conditioned as the main buildings of most of our schools were built before air-conditioning was available.

The Board of Education and district staff are aware of the challenge of attending school in non-air conditioned classrooms and are committed to bringing air-conditioning to our schools in the years to come. The cost of air-conditioning a single school can range anywhere from 2.5 to 4 million dollars. Due to their large size which provides more funding, each high school does have enough in its modernization budget to install air-conditioning during modernization. Elementary and intermediate schools’ site modernization budgets had to be used for the prerequisite electrical, plumbing and other infrastructure to support future air conditioning; their budgets, even with state matching funds, was not enough to install air conditioning. Adding air-conditioning to the remaining elementary and intermediate schools will cost a minimum of 150 million dollars. Air-conditioning can be installed using district facilities budgets, albeit on a longer timeline if district funds are the sole source of funding. A June 2016 bond measure, if attempted and successful, could allow us to provide air-conditioning more quickly to all schools. We understand that we need to move towards air-conditioning all of our schools, and appreciate your patience as we work to ensure that all of our schools remain successful and comfortable places to learn.