Waterbury Public Schools made the difficult decision to call for an early dismissal Wednesday, the third day of school. This decision was because of the extreme heat and humidity in the forecast for Wednesday afternoon.
Interim Superintendent Dr. Darren Schwartz said it was a tough choice so early in the year, however, safety is first priority.
"Not the easiest decision to make on the second day of school for today, for the third day," Dr. Schwartz said. “It was a tough decision, but we decided to err on the caution. Best interest. We have a lot of students, a lot of students with medical needs so we had to take that into consideration," he said.
Although Waterbury Public Schools are equipped with air conditioning, Dr. Schwartz said some classrooms are still experiencing warm conditions inside. The interim superintendent said he does not want to subject students or teachers to these conditions.
Get top local stories in Connecticut delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Connecticut's News Headlines newsletter.
“The reality is there’s many of our classrooms on the upper floors of some of our larger schools. They were getting up into the high 80s, low 90s yesterday and we know today is going to be even muggier and have higher temperatures,” Dr. Schwartz explained.
In addition, Schwartz said these conditions are not conducive for learning.
After-school sports programs and other extracurricular activities were also canceled for Wednesday afternoon.
Some schools dismissed as early as 11 a.m.
Schwartz said 18 out of 32 schools do not have conditioning.
All 14 elementary schools do not have air conditioning and three high schools and one middle school are in the process of upgrading their HVAC and do not have functioning air conditioning.
He said they will evaluate each warm weather day to determine the level of tolerable heat in the schools.
The school district used two early release days last year for high temperatures and high humidity.
