Furnace malfunctions at Belleville school, leaving students to rely on portable heaters

As the metro east grapples with sub-freezing temperatures, a malfunctioning heating system caused some students and staff at Jefferson Elementary School in Belleville to rely on portable heaters to stay warm before eventually being relocated to other parts of the building.

Six classrooms, an office and another room used by students in the older portion of the school were impacted by the malfunctioning HVAC system on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

There was no school on Monday, President’s Day, or Wednesday because of snow and freezing temperatures.

The school used portable heaters in the affected areas on Tuesday. Thursday, students, teachers and staff relocated to warmer parts of the school, Belleville District 118 Superintendent Ryan Boike said. He said temperatures in the affected classrooms were around 60 degrees on Thursday.

Illinois Department of Public Health’s website says classrooms should between 68 and 75 degrees degrees during the winter.

According to the National Weather Service, Tuesday’s high in Belleville reached 19 degrees just after midnight, but did not exceed 13 degrees during school hours. Thursday’s high of 19 degrees wasn’t reached until after classes were dismissed.

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As of 4 p.m. Thursday, a contractor had examined the building’s HVAC unit and it started producing heat, but the district was still working to determine the underlying problem, Boike said.

“We’ve been given every indication that by school’s start on Monday this issue will be resolved,” he said.

Boike noted that for about an hour on Tuesday the heating system that impacts the rest of the school malfunctioned but was quickly repaired.

Jefferson principal Jacob Halde explained in a Thursday afternoon email to parents that the HVAC system malfunctions when the outside temperature drops below 10 degrees. District 118 purchased this system for $758,000, including installation, in the summer of 2023.

This system also didn’t function properly one day in January, Boike said.

Thursday’s email was the first communication parents received that the school wasn’t being heated properly, said Nicole Martin, the mother of two students at Jefferson.

Martin said she first contacted the district back in January with concerns about cold classrooms and was assured portable heaters were being brought in. After not hearing more on the matter from the district, she said she thought there wouldn’t be more issues.

So when she heard talk of classrooms being cold and advice that students should bundle up while indoors, Martin called the district and learned about the malfunctioning HVAC system, she said.

Martin said the district should have communicated the issue with parents and had it fixed long before Thursday, and that the only reason she knew there was a problem was because she called.

“A month later, I’m expecting some type of resolution,” Martin said. “Rather than trying to move kids into other areas, is e-learning an option? The fact of the matter is we had no communication whatsoever with the school, so I didn’t know what plan was in place for these kids.”

Boike was made aware of these concerns, and responded:

“If somebody feels that the communication was not effective or timely, we will do our best in the future to ensure that we communicate with families and we want to ensure that they understand and know that the safety and the welfare of their children are top priority.”

This story was originally published February 21, 2025 at 11:11 AM.