To answer your question, turning off the air conditioning is not actually a decision made by us. The issue with air conditioning is much bigger than our school district. In short, Chester County has grown faster than the electric companies can accommodate. The grid simply can’t handle the demand in our area, so the consortium of energy companies (PJM) asks the largest users to shut down when needed or they will not have enough electricity to meet the demand. They ask us to shutdown at 2:00 but we requested that we at least wait until 4:00 when our students have dismissed. The buildings take quite awhile to ‘warm up’ after that time. If we don’t comply, the a/c will cease to work or PECO will put brown-outs in place, both of which cause a/c not to function. So, we really don’t have a choice in the matter. All buildings are turned off, including mine. In fact, mine was turned off several times in the summer .(A new power company needs to be built to accommodate all the growth.) The heat wave should end in the next two days, so hopefully it will not be necessary for us to shut down a/c again.