Wake County parent raises concerns over hot Holly Springs trailer classroom

A Holly Springs Elementary parent is pressing Wake County Schools over whether her child should spend the school day in a trailer classroom that she says feels muggy, overheated and difficult to cool. Ashley Sidle said she noticed the conditions during a meet-the-teacher event at the Holly Springs school, where her son has just finished first grade and is set to return next month as a year-round second grader.

Sidle said the mobile classroom behind the school felt hot and humid even before the school year started. She said the room had been dealing with heating and cooling problems since January and had rarely had usable heat or air conditioning. As temperatures climbed into the 80s indoors after recess, she said children were already being moved around the building to get out of the heat.

The complaint lands in a district that has spent years confronting HVAC breakdowns and uncomfortable classrooms. Last school year, heating and cooling problems forced early dismissals on 40 days across Wake County Public Schools, a pattern that disrupted class time and created child care and transportation problems for families. The Holly Springs case adds a local flashpoint to that larger record, especially in a part of the county where parents have repeatedly raised concerns about building conditions.

Sidle said she wants a long-term fix rather than short-term workarounds. Wake County had previously said Holly Springs Elementary would get a full HVAC replacement, but it was not clear whether that plan includes the trailer classroom where her son is assigned. That uncertainty has left families trying to determine whether the school’s main building upgrades will address the mobile units that sit behind it.

To push for relief sooner, Sidle started a GoFundMe campaign to help buy an air-conditioning unit for the classroom. Her effort underscores how immediate the problem feels to her family and how much confidence remains at stake when a district’s facility plans do not clearly cover every classroom where students are learning.

Wake County school officials and the school board representative for Holly Springs Elementary were contacted for comment, leaving the dispute over the trailer classroom and the district’s fix still unresolved.