Classes were canceled Thursday at Buffalo Grove High School amid the excessive heat temperatures and issues with the school’s HVAC system, school officials announced in a post on the Township High School District 214 website.
BGHS, located in northwest suburban Buffalo Grove, is one of six high schools in the Arlington Heights-based school district. The closure comes a little over a week from the Aug. 16 start of the new school year.
Officials attributed the closure to “mechanical problems related to the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) system that are resulting in unusually high temperatures in the building and unsafe, wet floor conditions,” the post reads.
Officials stated in the post that as maintenance workers address the issue, “we do not expect that the issues can be resolved in a way that will make the school sufficiently comfortable to conduct classes – particularly considering today’s high heat index.”
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Air temperatures were forecast to be in the low- to mid-90s Thursday, with a heat index — or “feels like” — in the triple digits. Heat advisories had been issued earlier in the week and were for Wednesday and Thursday, the latter expected to be the hottest day of the week.
It was not immediately clear at what point the district decided to close the building, as classes were held the day before.
School officials could not be immediately reached for further comment on the situation.
However, the online post states that school buses would either take students back to bus stops where they were picked up or inform them of the school closure at their pick-up stop.
Coaches and other such personnel were to reach out to students by noon Thursday concerning athletic and other practices, as well as other co-curricular activities,” according to the post.
“We recognize the timing of this decision is far from ideal and sincerely apologize for this unforeseen inconvenience and disruption to our schedule. The timing of our system failure and resulting conditions in the building forced a later than desired decision timeline,” officials stated in the post.
