Ridiculously cold.

Current outdoor temperature: 83 degrees.
I. Am. Freezing. In. My. Classroom.

It’s gotten so bad that I have taken to wearing turtlenecks, sweaters, jeans, and close-toed shoes, making for a rather uncomfortable recess duty (and some strange looks from parents at dismissal). I have stuffed all the classroom vents with newspaper and paper towels (see Exhibit A)…

….and then attempted to seal them shut entirely with a combination of poster board, packing tape, and stick pins (Exhibit B). Yet the air conditioning continues to blast in through my questionably resourceful barrier like a gale force wind, causing me to repair falling poster board and re-stuff with newspaper several times per week.

Did I mention that I also keep the windows open? (Exhibit C)

The kids’ hands are still ice cold (so are their noses, but don’t ask how I found that out). They sit shivering at their seats, slipping their arms out of their sleeves, trying to write with little hands sticking out all T-Rex like.

And it’s going to continue like this all winter long. In January, our high temperature outside will be around 65 (and we’ve already had a few cold fronts that were FAR lower than that). Yet the A/C has never and will never be turned off or down.

This infuriates me to no end when there is no money for teacher raises (or for the $20K in stipends that I lost this year–you knew I’d find a way to bring that back up, eventually). By a conservative estimate, the school system must spend close to a quarter million a month on electricity. 3 MILLION DOLLARS A YEAR to freeze us like popsicles. Seriously?

So add ‘temperature’ to my seemingly endless list of Things I Can’t Control in My Classroom.
I am so over this. What is the point of living in Fort Lauderdale when your sandaled feet turn blue with cold eight hours a day?

My guess is that you all have temperature issues as well…an overabundance of or total lack of heat. What’s going on?!