Parents worried over lack of air conditioning on Northeast Florida school buses

Some Northeast Florida parents said their kids come home dripping with sweat because of school buses without air conditioning.

Over the last week, temperatures in Jacksonville reached into the mid-90s.

“I can see the sweat running down his face right now,” Lucia Meyer said about her 6-year-old son, Leo.

Meyer’s two sons take the school bus home every day without air conditioning. Instead, the bus usually has the windows rolled down.

“It feels like I’m heating in a[n] oven,” Leo said.

Action News Jax obtained an email from Duval County Schools Superintendent Dr. Nikolai Vitti to a parent in which he said about 40 percent of the school buses have air conditioning.

Vitti said the district provides air conditioning on school buses for students with medical requirements.

Vitti said it could cost around $5.5 million to equip the rest of the school buses with air conditioning and said the money needs to be budgeted over several years to make that happen.

Vitti said in the email that they are adding air conditioners as a requirement for school buses in the future.

To test out how hot it can get without air conditioning, an Action News Jax crew drove around Monday afternoon for about 10 minutes with the windows rolled down and without the air conditioner on.

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The crew was in a car, not a school bus, but at one point a packed book bag on the floor got as hot as 110 degrees.

Once the air conditioner was turned on, it dropped to 82 degrees in the shade.

Some elementary school students said they can really feel the heat on their rides home.

“Sometimes when it gets really hot, I can’t really breathe a lot,” student Zariyah Livermore said.

“I get sweaty and thirsty at the same time,” student Ivy Wilson said.

Meyer said air conditioners are needed immediately.

“All buses should have air conditioning on them,” Meyer said. “I mean they’re on the bus for about 20 to 25 minutes, sometimes up to half an hour.”

The St. Johns County school district said it only provides air conditioning on the 50 bus routes with exceptional student education students (ESE).

The Clay County school district said its 54 ESE routes do have air conditioning but the 116 general-education student routes do not have it. The Clay County district estimates it would cost about $1.6 million to equip the rest of the school buses with AC.

The Columbia County school district said 66 of the 114 buses have air conditioning. Twenty of the buses with air conditioning in Columbia County serve ESE students.

Cox Media Group