Linda Conner Lambeck, Staff Writer, Connecticut Post

BRIDGEPORT — If Toniann Thompson, 14, hadn’t known better she would have sworn she was still in Jamaica.

Instead, the Bassick High School freshman was stuck Thursday within the hot brick confines of her school, which is not air conditioned, until the early dismissal bell rang at 12:27 p.m.

Chelsea Gonzalez, a Bassick senior, used words like suffocating to describe the conditions on the upper floors of the school. She is grateful the district decided to shorten the school day, just a week into the new school year.

“We wouldn’t have made it through the whole day,” she said.

Her younger sister, Sydney Gonzalez, a sophomore, said it was hard to concentrate.

City School officials announced Wednesday that, because of the hot, humid weather, all schools would run Thursday on a half-day session. In addition, the city’s after-school Lighthouse program was cancelled, as well as faculty meetings in buildings that lacked air conditioning.

On Wednesday, temperatures hit 93. Joseph Garcia, a vice president for Global Partnership, a management firm hired to “restart” Harding High School, said the third floor science rooms at Harding was as hot as a furnace on Wednesday.

“I can tell you it was really very, very hot. The teachers did a great job. I was dripping wet, it was so hot in that building,” Garcia said.

Thursday, the midday temperature flirted with 90 degrees. Although 11 of the district’s 34 school buildings have air conditioning — including six that are less than four years old — the decision to close them all early was made for uniformity’s sake.

“Because of contracts, transportation, logistics, and communications concerns, it is difficult to segregate the system when making these decisions,” said Schools Superintendent John Ramos in a written statement.

City schools started on Aug. 25, the first in the region. Most other school districts — with the exception of Seymour which started Aug. 26 — started classes this week. No other area school district in the region let students out early on Thursday.

In Ansonia, Schools Superintendent Carole Merlone said school was not interrupted because all four of its school buildings have air conditioning.

With forecasters predicting a big drop in temperature Friday, it’s anticipated school will run on a normal schedule across the district, city school officials said.