BY DRAKE LOGAN

Charger Online

The air inside Oxford High School seemed to be excessively heavy last Tuesday.  

Oxford High’s air conditioning unit stopped working on a hot August day with temperatures well into the 90s. Students and teachers cranked up their thermostats but nothing happened.

“One of the compressors went out and we had to call to have it replaced,” OHS Assistant Principal Duncan Gray said last week.

Fast forward to Monday, and the new high school is experiencing much of the same.

“The second AC unit is not working,” Principal Bradley Roberson announced to the faculty and staff Monday morning.  “Johnson Controls is here working on it.”

As the building seemed to cook in the August sun last week, many students became increasingly frustrated and were heavily hampered by the heat.

“I was really hot and it was very distracting,” junior Thomas Hoskins said.

As students did their work in classrooms full of warm people and warm computers – without air conditioning – many began to struggle to concentrate on their tasks. Some wings of the building would have spontaneous bursts of cool air, but it would quickly be doused by the thick August heat. Students bustled down the hallways looking weary and exhausted.

“It reminded me of when I first started teaching at Coahoma High School,” U.S. History teacher Robert Molpus said.  “We did not even have air conditioning.”

It was distracting and frustrating for many at Oxford High School, but the prognosis on the air conditioning seems positive. Gray hopes that there are no future issues with the air conditioning.

“Engines fail, parts go out, things have to be replaced. We can’t guarantee that nothing will happen but for the most part, we feel like we have a pretty good unit,” Gray said.

As far as an update goes, Gray’s counterpart, Assistant Principal Paul Ross, said the air must be working now.

“It certainly feels better, doesn’t it?” he said.

On Wednesday, September 9, the air conditioning became erratic. Several days of on and off cool air have continued to frustrate many students at OHS.

Principal Bradley Roberson said the inconsistent air conditioning stems from a faulty motor on their chiller.

“Johnson Controls is working on that, they are ordering a new motor.” he said.

Things appear to have settled down. As of September 10, the air conditioning has been restored to working order.