Last week's Lowell Sun reported that students and faculty in some class rooms at Lowell High were forced to wear coats during the school day because of heating problems at the school. Two city councilors filed motions requesting the city to address this issue (the city owns and maintains all school buildings - the school custodians do the cleaning). The city manager said that the first he was aware there was a problem was when he read about it in the paper last week. Later, he said that the city's DPW head - Ed Walsh - learned back in October that some of the heating units weren't working. (Apparently, Mr. Walsh didn't relay this information to the city manager during the intervening three months, otherwise the city manager would not have said that he had only just heard about it the week before). The city manager also said that on one of the coldest days of the year (Jan 9) the city health department tested the temperatures at the high school and that they were no lower than 67 degrees. Stories from parents about their children wearing coats during class because of extreme cold paint a much different picture. It's odd that no one from the school committee or the school department took the opportunity to speak on these motions. If someone had been present, many of the questions councilors had could have been answered on the spot and the process may have moved forward at a quicker pace. As it stands now, by the time the heating system is repaired, they'll be worrying about air conditioning.