Alice High School uses temporary chiller amid air-conditioning repairs
Alice High School got a temporary chiller before 8 a.m., and Alice ISD said it would be running by noon as students stayed in class.
Students at Alice High School stayed in class Wednesday as crews brought in a temporary chiller before 8 a.m. to stabilize parts of campus hit by air-conditioning problems. Alice Independent School District said the cooling unit was expected to be fully operational by noon, an urgent fix meant to keep the school day moving while repairs continued.
The stopgap mattered because the problem reached beyond comfort. In a South Texas school building, cooling can shape whether classrooms stay usable, whether staff can work through the day, and whether students can focus as temperatures rise outside. Alice ISD said the ongoing work was affecting parts of the campus, while the temporary chiller gave crews time to keep instruction going instead of interrupting the day.
The district’s maintenance department says it is responsible for upkeep and safety at Alice High School and other campuses, including the Alice Administration Building and William Adams Middle School. That responsibility has become more visible as the district works through repeated facilities problems tied to its high school cooling system.
Those concerns were already on the board’s radar last summer. On July 21, 2025, Alice ISD trustees discussed roof and chiller problems at a board meeting, and district facilities staff reported mold and elevated humidity at Alice High School and Shaller Elementary tied to rooftop-unit and chiller issues. The earlier discussion also pointed to legal and contract complications, including a long-term Johnson Controls contract and roof litigation, which made immediate repairs more difficult.
The weather added pressure to the repair effort. The National Weather Service forecast partly sunny conditions for the Alice area, with a high near 88 degrees and heat index values as high as 94. In that kind of heat, a broken cooling system can quickly turn into a school operations problem, especially on a campus as large as Alice High School in Jim Wells County.
For now, the district’s message is clear: the temporary chiller is meant to buy time while crews work on the underlying air-conditioning problem. The goal is to keep students learning inside the building and avoid a larger disruption at a campus where reliable cooling is essential to daily operations.
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