Hot classrooms, bus drivers and crisis alert systems: Here's where APS is in preparing for the 2023-24 school year.

Where did the summer go?

With the new school year fast approaching — kicking off for most grades in roughly two weeks — Albuquerque Public Schools officials on Friday shared the district’s solutions and progress in addressing some of its perennial problems.

Here were some of the issues they addressed:

Hot classrooms

Concerns with schools’ air conditioning systems arise almost every summer at APS. This year’s exceedingly sweltering temperatures, though, have been a source of concern for the district, Chief Operations Officer Gabriella Blakey told the Journal on Friday.

“We’re prepared, but we have certain challenges in front of us,” she said. “The early start to the year, along with these high temperatures we’re having does (present) a concern for us in making sure that we can keep the learning environment at a comfortable temperature.”

Since the beginning of the month, there’ve been 688 work orders on the district’s approximately 25,000 cooling units. Of those 688 orders, 86% — which amounts to about 592 — have been resolved.

Principals are currently making the rounds in their schools, checking for air conditioning functionality throughout facilities, Blakey said.

Over the past few years, Blakey said, the district has invested about $28 million in upgrading its HVAC equipment, replacing some 2,850 units so far.

But those projects aren’t slated to be fully completed until September of next year, she said, as APS continues to face supply chain issues in getting the units it needs.

Staffing issues

So long as all the district’s bus drivers stay on, Transportation Manager John Griego said, APS is more or less in a good place to run the new bell schedules announced earlier this year.

Those bell schedules, officials have said, were staggered to accommodate the district’s limited supply of drivers. The district has about 220, Safety Supervisor Cory Brook said.

Still, Brook added the department is short at least eight drivers.

Bus drivers are not the only area of need in APS right now, though.

There are some 700 positions open across the district, Senior Director of Human Resources Dorothy Chavez said, though those cover many different types of staff.

Among the biggest areas of need, HR Chief Todd Torgerson said, are special education teachers and educational assistants. No classrooms will go without someone to teach students, he said, though some may be covered with long-term substitutes.

“We do have a need for teachers, we always do,” Torgerson said. “But … we’ll have coverage.”

Security measure

Sometime this fall, officials expect to fully implement in all schools a card system that staff — with pushes of buttons located on cards they can wear with their lanyards — can use to discreetly call for help in case of emergency.

With three pushes of a button on the cards, as demonstrated during a back-to-school principal and media expo on Friday, school staff can summon “responders,” which include principals, to help them handle less severe situations, including fights breaking out among students.

In more dire situations, like when a teacher sees someone approaching their school with a weapon, they can send the entire campus into a full lockdown with eight or more button pushes that activate strobe lights and alert school police.

“This system … works all over the campus — football stadiums, parking lots, athletic fields, playgrounds, inside, outside,” said Larry Hausner, a solution consultant for CENTEGIX, the safety technology company providing the cards and system to APS.

He added the card system isn’t meant to replace any of the district’s existing security measures — just to provide another layer of protection.