Some parents from St. Raphael’s Catholic Private School were upset over the school’s air conditioning.

One parent who spoke with KFOX14 Tuesday said the air conditioning was working properly.

“They’ve got two types of units, in there. They’ve got evaporative units many without water, and portable refrigeration units,” said the parent who wished to remain anonymous.

With the triple-digit heat, the parent said the classrooms' temperatures were unbearable for the children.

The heat is uncomfortable and raises a health issue for the children, but also parent’s feel they can not learn properly and said that it has been a problem since the start of the school year, which was Aug. 9.

The parent said he along with other parents have tried to fix the problem and determine a resolution.They have tried talking to the head of the school. “We’ve tried to meet with him and he is unavailable, unreachable,” he said.

They also tried calling the Diocese. “As of yet, we haven’t heard back from them,” the parents said.

KFOX14 tried calling St. Raphael’s who said the principal could not comment but referred us to the Diocese Education office. KFOX called to speak with Father Tony Salino who is in charge but he was not available and has not returned our call.

The parent said, “We’re going through a lot as a school right now. We recently lost our former principal who was an amazing woman, but we also have current urgent needs.”

The new principal did send out a letter addressing the issue that said,“We should have the rooms much cooler before labor day.Thank God the temperatures have been in the 90s not the 100s”

“We’ll tolerate as much as we can, for as long as we can but we also expect something to be done about it,” he said.

Because temperatures have been in the 100s some parent we spoke with said they called the City’s building compliance about the school's air conditioning.

Bill Stern with the city of El Paso's building compliance said the building's room temperature can't be more than 90 degree or more. When they went out to the school Friday they found most classes were 85 degrees but one classroom was 89 degrees. City officials said they had the school open up windows to the building to allow for circulation. Stern said on Tuesday around 3 p.m. the classrooms were over 90 degrees and had school officials call an air-conditioning and heating company to go fix the problem.

Stern gave the school a 24 hour correction notice.

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