It's going to be another long, hot summer for the students at Blaxland High School.
The P&C president of Blaxland High, Robyn Totenhofer, is frustrated their school will not get air conditioning in time for the Higher School Certificate exams this year, despite being promised the units in a state government announcement in November 2018. The date has now blown out to 2022.
Ms Totenhofer said a detailed assessment was done in August 2019 and the school was expecting the $150,000 50-room project would be "being done or completed by now".
"The school was told it was a six to 12 month wait ... it would be done by now. Now they have postponed it until 2022 with no explanation and our students won't have air conditioning this summer."
In the past decade the P&C has paid for a couple of classrooms to have air conditioning in some of the rooms where the students sat for the HSC.
"But we stopped that when we qualified for cooler classrooms ... we were in the temperature range that they determined," Ms Totenhofer said.
The BHS P&C president said the new air conditioning was supposed to be "across the board, all classrooms" with the exception of the Performing Arts Centre and staff rooms. She is worried that another detailed assessment will now need to be redone.
"It's extremely disappointing and extremely frustrating. Last year was so hot, we were hoping to have that relieved so the students can learn properly."
Blaxland High was one of the first schools announced to benefit from the Cooler Classrooms program - a $500 million, five-year election promise to install air conditioning in NSW classrooms and libraries. Previously only schools with an average maximum January temperature of 33 degrees or more were air conditioned.
A NSW Department of Education spokeswoman said they had been "in regular communication with the Blaxland High School community".
"On 1 April 2020, Blaxland High School was advised that the commencement date would be Term 3 2022 however the department is exploring opportunities to accelerate the delivery schedule."
She said to deliver a "quality, sustainable and cost effective program of this scale takes time and that is why the NSW government announced that the rollout will be over five years".
"The Cooler Classrooms Program is a record $500 million investment to improve learning environments in public schools across NSW. There are more than 900 schools currently included as part of the program."
Labor's education spokeswoman Prue Car warned that the roll-out will take decades if the government doesn't stop the delays.
"Some 900 schools were approved for air conditioning under the first round of the program, but two years on, just 93 projects have been delivered. The government took three months to approve the first round of applications. That time frame has blown out to 15 months for the second round, with more than 400 schools still waiting for an outcome.
"It's created disappointment and false hope. The government should be fast-tracking projects that create jobs, not delaying them. Children shouldn't be forced to swelter at school."
The first applications took place in Term 3 of 2018. Solar panels and 'smart systems' would be installed alongside the air conditioning units, so schools could offset additional energy use, Education Minister Rob Stokes said at the time.
Comments last week in the media from the department said some delays to the program were caused by problems with the site, or difficulty finding tenders that represented value for money or complied with conditions.