The last thing anyone wants, particular childcare professionals, is a hot room full of anxious kids.
Thanks to F&S pipefitters, a summer day with malfunctioning air conditioning didn’t become anything more than a short-term problem. Per rules set by the Illinois Department of Child & Family Services (DCFS), a room cannot go past 85 degrees, without requiring children leave the premises.
One hot summer day, the teachers and faculty began to notice that the play area, the primary classroom they’re in, that the air conditioning wasn’t working, and with every minute, the temperature upped. Molly Harmon, child development coordinator at the Child Development Lab, quickly sent a work order and F&S responded.
“One of the things we always try to do, with children and animals, the U. of I. has a lot of labs with animals. First, with children, we do try to jump that up and make it priority,” said Kody Egolf, pipefitters foreperson. “Rather than going to someone’s office space upstairs or something where they can manage until he next day, the kids have regulations. Knowing that they can’t have kids if its over 85 degrees, you have to send them home. Knowing that, kids are priorities.”
“They came out like an emergency, immediately,” said Harmon. “That was really awesome. I didn’t want to have to call families to come pick up their kids during regular working hours and close down and all that.”
Said Egolf, who often works with CDL: “I think they were very relieved we could help that day. I know Molly was concerned they were going to have to send kids home. It’s a big thing to call the parents, they’re at work and everything. I have young kids myself at a daycare, and if I would have got the call, I’d have to leave work. So, they were relived they didn’t have to make those calls.”
Egolf and Harmon have even discussed the back-up plan of large fans to temporarily cool the room, in case a longer repair-time is needed. But in this case, a new belt was needed that the team had in the work truck on-site.
Molly Very Thankful
Harmon: “Our kids always come first, so when our building is not a safe environment, even if it’s ‘just’ AC, that’s a huge hazard. We take them in consideration first. It’s a little different than a ‘little’ hot, or ‘not that hot,’ but their bodies can’t regulate temperature as well as we can. We have to keep them cool. Even teachers in hot environment monitoring these children: not a good scenario. That’s our main goal is to keep them safe.
“F&S does a really good job when I mention that, not even this scenario, but when I mention it’s a children’s space, that all our work orders that mention children, the service office puts priority in the description, because it’s a child’s space. I have really good relationships with many F&S workers, like our lighting guy, our heating and air, our plumber: they come almost instantly and I really appreciate that. The kids can’t wait, like, a week. If it’s a hazard to the kids, whether a key doesn’t work or AC, most of the time F&S is instantly ready to help.”
The Deal with CDL
The Child Development Laboratory (CDL) is a National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) accredited, university-based early care and education program, sponsored by the Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign: It’s a full-day, year-round early care and education program serving infants, toddlers, twos, and preschoolers. The CDL offers full-day programming for children ages six weeks to five years in 12 different classrooms. This programming allows the CDL to fulfill its laboratory school mission of supporting and facilitating teaching, research, outreach, and engagement activities of faculty, staff, and students at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
They currently serve 149 students, including 56 preschoolers, 30 twos, 31 toddlers, and 32 infants. There have been more than 1,000 Illinois students serviced in thousands of class projects, observations, placements, and coursework in seven colleges and 11 departments.