Charles Crane/MDN Minot Public Schools district operations were limited to the lower two levels of the Administration Building on Tuesday due to an inoperable air conditioning unit, as temperatures crept up into the 90s in the afternoon.

With temps breaking through into the 90s this week, the staff and administrators of Minot Public Schools have finally had to reckon with the reality of their inoperable air conditioning unit at the district’s Administration Building.

Temperatures on the top floor of the Administration Building were mirroring outdoor temps on Tuesday, hovering just above 80 degrees shortly before noon. Fortunately for most of the employees situated in the Administration Building’s top floor, all but one are off for the summer as they are on 10-month contracts, according to Superintendent Scott Faul. Faul said the lone full-time staffer remaining upstairs has been able to bring work downstairs when temperatures have reached unbearable levels.

“Our lower level in this building is cooled by two different A/C units, so it’s really just (the first) floor and the top floor where the A/C is out. (Tuesday) afternoon was uncomfortable, but we’re making it work. We’ll see in the coming weeks what the forecast does and how that shapes up,” Faul said.

Portable units and blowing fans have been situated throughout the first floor to make up for the inoperable unit, allowing the district to maintain and go about its business enrolling students for the upcoming school year.

The Administration Building is 115 years old and has been repurposed several times over the years. The malfunctioning A/C unit had been in use since 1972, and the manufacturer has been out of business since the late 1980s.

Several replacement options were presented by Facilities Manager Jared Edwards at the school board’s June 13 meeting, but both replacement options were estimated to cost between $450,000-$1 million and at least 26 weeks for procurement, demolition and installation. A third plan involving separate units in each office on the two floors would be considerably cheaper, but wouldn’t offer much control, according to Edwards.

“August 5, all of our 10-month people will be back and the building will be back to full capacity. Those are pretty warm times of the year, and we’re going to make due with portables. Our hope is that our new school board will start looking at a facilities plan that might address not only the issues at the district office, but in putting a prioritization together for our buildings throughout the district for things we’d like to see as a standard for each building,” Faul said. “At some point, our school board is going to have to make the decision about putting money into a 115-year-old building and if that’s good money or not good money to put into repairs. We’ll know by the end of the summer how portables work and if we’ll be able to make portables work long term.”

Faul said relocating the offices to other school buildings in the district was considered. It was ultimately determined to be unviable due to the disruption it would cause not only to classes but also for the business of the district.

“The work that happens in the summer, we really depend on each other, and we have lots of meetings. Every relocation spot would be out of classrooms and that’s not really a conducive workaround for business. We’re the face for the new families that move to town that come here in the summer. To try to relocate where we do enrollment, to have them in different locations really wouldn’t work as well,” Faul said. “As we try to develop a plan going forward, I think it would be hasty if we were to move into Central, because that has to be remodeled.”

Faul said a survey was being conducted by principals at schools in the district to assess their current systems and needs, as there was a lot of variety in the availability of air conditioning at schools in the district. Some utilize partial central air in additions or renovated spaces or portable units and others with none at all.

“There’s a lot of discussion that needs to take place to come up with a comprehensive long-term plan and where we want to go, whether it’s the district building or a standard for the rest of our schools,” Faul said.