Short Pump Middle closes amid Henrico County HVAC crisis

HENRICO COUNTY, Va. — Short Pump Middle School closed Thursday after ongoing problems with the building's cooling system made classrooms too hot for students.

It's the latest in a series of HVAC failures across Henrico County Public Schools.

Parents received a notification at 8:26 a.m. Thursday saying that despite ongoing work, temperature readings remained high and a decision was made to close the school due to current classroom temperatures and record high heat.

The closure came after weeks of escalating problems.

On Aug. 23, parents were told technicians were working over the weekend to bring a faulty component back online to ensure the building was cool on the first day of school.

By Wednesday, Sept. 2, the school's leadership said its maintenance team, central HVAC technicians and HCPS vendors had gotten the building's chiller operating at 50% and installed coolers in exterior-facing upstairs classrooms Tuesday night.

A commercial-sized chiller was also ordered to provide constant cooling throughout the building.

But by Wednesday, parents were told the venting strategy used for the cooler installation was not as effective as initially hoped, and vendor teams were brought in overnight to get the AC units to vent air through the outer windows.

By Thursday morning, it was not enough.

Heba Abbassey, the mother of a 6th grade student at Short Pump Middle, said she received a call about the closure at 6:30 Thursday morning.

She said her daughter had already been feeling the effects of the heat.

"My daughter came home covered in sweat yesterday and I was like why were you running? And she said, 'I wasn't running, it was hot today,'" Abbassey said.

Her daughter described conditions inside the school before the closure.

"Yeah, it was like 92 degrees and like the temperature was so hot my teacher was like we were going to go to the library because it's much cooler there," she said.

The Short Pump Middle closure is the latest in a series of system-wide HVAC issues across HCPS.

On Wednesday, Harvie Elementary dismissed early due to extremely warm temperatures.

Parents were told those issues were resolved Thursday morning. Abbassey said she fears several schools are in similar positions.

"You've got it from Gayton Elementary, to Short Pump Elementary," Abbassey said.

"The funding is there, why are we not acting on it?" she said.

A father of a Short Pump Middle student, who chose to remain anonymous, said he has been watching the situation closely.

"What has been going on between the school board and the county leadership with regard to the seeming inability of the school leadership to do maintenance on the school buildings," he said.

Abbassey said she wants to see increased communication from the school coupled with tangible, long-lasting results.

"I'm not condemning them, but I wish they would really notify us sooner," Abbassey said. "There're a lot of children who need to be in a safe environment when they are at school learning and now is the time to really take that deeper dive. Actions speak louder than words and so really put those actions into place."

A Henrico County spokesperson said facilities staff and contracted technicians will continue to work extended hours throughout the holiday weekend to address and repair school HVAC issues as quickly as possible.

This is a developing story, so check back with WTVR.com for updates. Email the CBS 6 Newsroom if you have info, photos or videos to share.