'Ma I'm cold:' Parents pull Edgecombe students out of class early after heat breaks

The heat went out in classrooms at West Edgecombe Middle School on Monday, leading some parents to have to go and pick up their children.

Some of those parents tell WRAL News this wasn’t the first time the school’s run into problems with heating, and they’re calling on the district to fix it.

Within hours of school starting on Monday morning, West Edgecombe students sent word to their parents: it was freezing inside their classrooms, and they wanted to go home.

“My daughter said her teacher had gloves on,” West Edgecombe parent Mary Brake said. “I sent my oldest daughter down there and she picked her up, a lot of the kids got signed out today.”

Speaking with WRAL News on Monday, Brake said the day’s cold classrooms were just the latest issue caused by the heating at her daughter’s school.

“She said that there was no heat in the whole school, that the cafeteria hasn’t had heat in a while and they’ve been eating in their classrooms,” Brake said.

Other parents said the same thing – and that the cold was hurting more than just students’ abilities to learn.

“Last week my son come home, and when I picked him up he was really, really hungry,” said Carly Aycock, parent of a student at West Edgecombe. “And I was like you didn’t eat lunch?”

“And he was like no, I didn’t eat lunch because I couldn’t go in the cafeteria because it was so cold in there,” she continued. “So that upsets me.”

WRAL News reached out to Edgecombe County Public Schools for a response to the parents’ concerns.

“There was a heat issue at West Edgecombe Middle School yesterday morning,” a spokesperson for the district responded in a statement. “Our maintenance team worked quickly and heat was restored to the classrooms by mid-morning. “

A district representative also said the Edgecombe superintendent visited campus on Tuesday morning to make sure the heat was working properly.

But around noon on Tuesday, another West Edgecombe parent provided WRAL News with messages from her son saying the building was freezing cold yet again, and asking to come home.

Some parents have started to call for the district to keep students out until it can fix the heat on campus permanently.

“They’re requiring these kids to work in these conditions, this is not the way our children should be in school,” Aycock said.

WRAL News reached out to Edgecombe County Public Schools to confirm whether the heat went out again at West Edgecombe on Tuesday. As of 6 p.m. on Tuesday, school officials had not responded to WRAL News.