Students and teachers at Paul W. Horn Elementary School in Bellaire have been sweating through broken air conditioning since the start of the school year, forcing the campus PTO to pay more than $8,300 to rent portable cooling units while Houston ISD works on a permanent fix. Parents say the heat has made classrooms nearly unbearable and is getting in the way of learning.
According to Click2Houston, the Horn Elementary PTO board held an emergency vote and approved renting 31 district-approved portable AC units after the underlying HVAC problem went unresolved. Parent Lori Williamson said the air-conditioning issue still has not been fixed, telling the outlet that teachers simply need to be able to teach. She added bluntly that she doesn't believe HISD will get the air conditioning fixed on its own.
The portable units have brought new frustrations of their own. Per the same report, the units were not turned on at the beginning of the school day, were switched on in the afternoon, and were turned off entirely once students left for the day — a schedule that has left classrooms hot during exactly the hours when kids are in their seats. Parent Hung Dang said the unresolved air conditioning was especially frustrating during a recent heat wave, while his daughter Julia Dang, a student at Horn Elementary, said the school has resorted to running many fans just to manage the heat.
A Districtwide Pattern, Not a One-School Problem
Horn Elementary's struggles are not happening in isolation. Houston ISD maintenance crews fielded 11,518 air-conditioning work order complaints across 261 of the district's 274 campuses during the 2024-2025 school year, according to KHOU 11 — meaning nearly 95 percent of all HISD campuses logged at least one cooling failure that year. During the opening weeks of August, parents at other HISD campuses, including River Oaks Elementary and Anderson Elementary, reported concurrent classroom cooling failures and either requested donated fans or pulled their kids out early, the station also reported.
Hoodline previously covered one of those cases in a Houston dad pulling his daughter over heat, and the pattern stretches back further still. In May, frustration over delayed district maintenance pushed parents at a southeast Houston elementary school to bring their own tools and tackle campus repairs themselves, as Hoodline reported in parents grabbing toolbelts to fix hazards.
Why the District Is Short on Cash for Repairs
The roots of the crisis trace back to November 2024, when roughly 58% of Houston ISD voters rejected a $4.4 billion bond proposal that would have put over $1 billion toward districtwide HVAC, safety, and infrastructure upgrades, per Community Impact reporting cited in the dossier. Left without that funding, the HISD Board of Managers approved a $120 million maintenance tax note loan in May 2025, setting aside $21.2 million for HVAC upgrades and $22.7 million for roof repairs across 36 campuses for the current school year, the Houston Chronicle reported. Maintenance tax notes let school districts borrow for essential upkeep without needing voter approval under the Texas Education Code.
Houston ISD officials acknowledged in August 2025 that more than 30% of the district's campuses are over 50 years old, contributing to persistent building envelope, roofing, and HVAC failures, according to KPRC 2. Horn Elementary itself was originally built in 1945 and was redesigned and rebuilt in 2010 to accommodate an enrollment capacity of 750 students, per city of Bellaire records. That aging infrastructure, combined with the failed bond, has left campuses like Horn relying on stopgap measures rather than permanent overhauls.
Closures Loom as State Guidelines Set the Bar
The financial squeeze has pushed HISD toward more drastic steps. In February, the district announced plans to begin closing campuses at the end of the current academic year, citing severe facility degradation, aging HVAC systems, and declining enrollment. Texas Administrative Code guidelines call for occupied classrooms and offices to be kept between 72 and 76 degrees Fahrenheit during warmer months, according to KSAT, a benchmark Horn Elementary parents say their children's classrooms have failed to meet on a normal school-day schedule.
The bond's failure has also drawn separate scrutiny. Legal experts and union representatives raised concerns in February 2025 after district records showed HISD had spent $2 million from its operating budget on campaign consultants for the failed November 2024 bond election, which the district had justified in part by citing security and HVAC upgrades. For families at Horn Elementary, that spending fight is now a backdrop to a more immediate problem: getting classrooms cool during the hours their kids are actually in them. KPRC 2 said it contacted Houston ISD about the HVAC issues and parents' concerns, and the district said it would provide a response for publication once received.
