JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A Jacksonville father is demanding better treatment for special needs students after he says his son’s ESE classroom at Bayview Elementary went without air conditioning for more than two weeks.
Joe Resnik says his fourth grader, who has autism and epilepsy, was left in a classroom that stayed above 80 degrees, making him vulnerable to heat stroke and seizures.
“This issue had apparently been going on since the start of the school year … and with his health condition, this was not safe for him,” Resnik told Action News Jax.
He says he only found out after a therapist mentioned the high classroom temperatures, not from the school itself. Calls to the principal went unanswered for hours, so he emailed district superintendents. Soon after, he was told his son’s class had been moved to a different classroom with working air conditioning.
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Resnik says the delayed response put his son in jeopardy.“It’s time that they treat CSS children and ESE children with the same respect that they treat all children, because this is not enough that they’re doing,” he said.
Duval County Public Schools confirmed the outage in a statement:
“We can confirm that two classrooms at Bayview Elementary have experienced intermittent AC issues. While maintenance teams worked to resolve the problem, school staff implemented temporary measures to ensure students remained comfortable, including relocating them to classrooms with functioning AC. We regret any inconvenience this may have caused and encourage families to contact school leadership directly with any questions or concerns about their child’s educational experience.”
But Resnik says the A/C issue is just one example of how special needs students are left behind. He pointed to shortages of therapists and delays in getting behavioral support for children with autism and other conditions.
“If you don’t have someone to constantly help and monitor them, it can be quite chaotic and difficult for just one teacher to handle that,” he said.
He’s now calling on DCPS to make repairs and staffing for ESE classrooms a higher priority, so students like his son can learn in a safe and supportive environment.
Action News Jax asked Duval County Schools about Resnik’s claims that Bayview Elementary was experiencing a shortage of therapists, but the district only responded to our questions about the air conditioning.
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