Updated: Kansas elementary school fixes air conditioner, will decide when to reopen

Skelly Elementary School in El Dorado canceled classes for staff and students Monday after discovering a breakdown in their air conditioning system.

Maintenance staff fixed the problem Monday, but want to make sure it will hold up before reopening the building. Students and staff should know by the end of the day if they will be going back to school Tuesday.

The eastern half of Kansas is under an excessive heat warning this week and a high near 106 degrees is forecast for Monday in El Dorado, the National Weather Service says.

“We had some HVAC issues, and with the heat being so high, we didn’t feel like it would be a safe environment to send kiddos to school,” said Kimberly Koop, the director of community engagement and recruitment for USD 490.

Canceling school Monday has the same effect as a snow day Koop said. The calendar includes extra days in case of emergency, so they won’t have to make up the time later in the year.

“It’s the beginning of the year so they haven’t dived too deep into anything just yet and it’s no different honestly than a snow day at this point,” Koop said. “Teachers will just adjust and what they were going to work on today, they’ll just hit tomorrow.”

Skelly parents were alerted Sunday night through School Messenger, an automated call, text and email system. Posts on El Dorado’s USD 490 social media have also been giving updates to parents.

According to Koop, a few households didn’t get the alert. Maintenance was done to part of the messaging system over the summer, and anyone who enrolled after the program was worked on was not contacted.

The tech team is working on that now and hope to have it fixed in time to let parents know about school tomorrow. Koop hadn’t heard that anyone went to Skelly this morning by accident, but the principal was sent to make sure.

The district has special safety measures to protect students participating in outdoor activities when the heat index is over 105. These include moving recess and P.E. inside. Extra water and breaks will also be added to athletic practices, following the KSHSAA guidelines to prevent heat illness.

There weren’t any activities scheduled at Skelly that had to be canceled for the day, but in the district some teams have opted to have morning practices to escape the heat. For example, the El Dorado Middle School football team is going to have 6 a.m. practices this week.