In North High School’s Signet Jewelers Academy of Global Technology and Design, the students sometimes can’t even turn on their computers.
The air conditioning on their side of the building — the “newer” side, as it were — hasn’t worked in months. If they turn on all the classroom computers, the room gets too hot. One 60-degree day this week, it was 80 degrees in their classroom.
North has about 1,000 students , many of whom are immigrants or come from immigrant families. They battle an abundance of challenges every day due to their building’s age.
The “old” side is just shy of 100. They can’t have the same technology other classrooms across the district have because they can’t drill into the walls, for fear of what toxins would enter the air. Paint peels regularly. Classrooms have buckets to catch water from roof leaks. Floor tiles can’t be changed without remediating for asbestos.
“Every time we repair one part of the roof, water finds another way in,” Principal Charles Morrison said on a recent tour of the building.