An air-conditioning unit sits outside a building at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, one of 11 Austin ISD campuses that reported HVAC issues this school year. (Jessica McLaren/Community Impact)
Air-conditioning upgrades funded by Austin ISD's $2.44 billion 2022 bond did not start as scheduled this year at four schools, district officials said. Three of them have reported problems with those systems as temperatures topped 100 degrees.
Officials blamed the delays on long equipment delivery times, design requirements and coordination with other campus construction. Because major heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, or HVAC, work is done in summer, when systems can be shut off, delays can push projects back a year, they said.
What's happening
Bond HVAC work did not start as scheduled at Kealing Middle School, Kiker and Baranoff elementary schools, and the Liberal Arts and Science Academy, or LASA, Executive Director of Facilities David Simon and Executive Director of Construction Management Michael Mann told CommunityImpact.
A sign outside LASA references the heat. HVAC work planned at the campus did not begin as scheduled, district officials said.(Jessica McLaren/Community Impact)
All four were among 53 campuses slated for targeted HVAC work in the district's January 2026 bond schedule. Kealing, Baranoff and LASA are among 11 AISD campuses that have reported HVAC problems this school year, the officials said.
The misses came on top of earlier schedule changes. The district's September 2025 and January 2026 bond schedules show more than a dozen bond-funded HVAC projects pushed back, 10 of them by a year or more.
The bond pays for large-scale system replacements, while day-to-day repairs come from the operating budget, Simon and Mann said. All current HVAC work orders are "actively in progress, waiting on parts, or assigned to a contractor for repair," and the district is providing temporary cooling "in spaces where feasible," they said.
As Community Impactreported in June, the district's recommended 2026-27 budget, which proposed $181 million in cuts, included $9.8 million in Operations Department reductions, including a 10% cut to facilities maintenance.
AISD also closed its central office July 6-20 for "planned critical electrical repairs," per a June announcement. The central office is not among the facilities on the district's 2022 bond project list.
Zooming in
Problems have also surfaced at campuses where major bond HVAC work isn't scheduled yet or covered only part of the building.
When asked about reports that an early childhood special education classroom for three- and four-year-olds at Davis Elementary reached about 85 degrees, Simon and Mann said, "An 85-degree classroom is not the environment we want for our students and staff."
Only that room was affected, and it needed a replacement part, they said. A portable unit cooled it until the part was installed the week of Sept. 7, an AISD spokesperson said. Davis' major bond HVAC replacements are separate and scheduled for 2028, the officials said.
At Akins Early College High School, the bond replaced HVAC units only in "select areas" in summers 2025 and 2026, so problems can still arise elsewhere on campus, Simon and Mann said. A small roof fire this summer damaged two units serving the girls' locker room and weight room. Those units are being repaired or replaced, with temporary cooling in place, they said.
The officials did not say which campuses' issues remain unresolved, and the district did not respond by press time on whether a revised targeted schedule exists.
By the numbers
Since classes began Aug. 18, Austin highs reached at least 100 degrees on 29 of 44 days through Sept. 30, peaking at 107 degrees Aug. 22-23, according to the National Weather Service.
Forty-one campuses in all have received bond HVAC work, including 15 with major HVAC improvements and six full modernizations with complete system replacements, Simon and Mann said.
Projects were completed this summer at Bailey, Blackshear, Blanton, Casey, Covington, McBee, McCallum and Zavala, and 30 more projects are scheduled from summer 2027 through summer 2028, the officials said.
How we got here
HVAC upgrades were part of the bond's $2.32 billion Proposition A, which voters approved in November 2022.
"Nobody should be going into a campus without a properly working HVAC system," Mann told Community Impact when the program launched in February 2023.
The first bond HVAC projects began that summer, according to previous Community Impact reporting. At the time, the district said it would prioritize Title I schools and projects that eliminated rental chillers, which cost about $10,000 a month each.
Rented chillers sit outside Kealing Middle School, where completion of bond-funded HVAC work was pushed back to early 2028.(Jessica McLaren/Community Impact)
The roughly six-year plan prioritizes failed systems and those nearing the end of their useful life, Simon and Mann said.
District schools average about 50 years old, and many systems have only received temporary fixes over time, according to a 2024 district FAQ. Projects it lists as completed in summer 2024 were smaller ones outside the bond's original scope, not major scheduled projects, the officials said.
"We recognize that our public-facing information has not always clearly distinguished between these different types of HVAC work," Simon and Mann said.
What they're saying
District officials acknowledged the delays but said the bond was never meant to cover every need.
"No single Bond program can address every HVAC and mechanical need in a district of our size," Simon and Mann said. "While some 2022 Bond timelines have shifted, we remain committed to delivering these projects as quickly as possible."
AISD parent and advocate Marie Lebron emailed the superintendent and trustees Sept. 9 asking for a detailed public bond tracker showing each campus's project, budget, spending and timeline.
"These are public dollars, and we should be able to follow the investment from the promise that was made to voters all the way through completion," she wrote.
Lebron told CommunityImpact she did not receive a response from the district about the air-conditioning issues. The district promised voters major HVAC repairs that would also cut maintenance costs, she said.
"Four years later, those savings haven't been realized … and our students and staff still don't consistently have working air conditioning or heat on our campuses," Lebron said.
AISD is updating its HVAC communications to show more consistently what is complete, underway and planned, district officials said.
What parents should know
AISD's Construction Management Department regularly reviews the bond schedule and may move projects earlier "when warranted and feasible," Simon and Mann said.
Families can check their campus on AISD's bond projects page and report facilities concerns through AISD Help online or the district portal.
Upcoming meetings are all at 6 p.m. at the central office, 4000 S. I-35 Frontage Road:
