ALPENA — Alpena High School students have been wearing coats in classrooms because of heating issues at the school.

Junior Evan Carlson told The News on Wednesday heaters have been off in certain rooms in the E-House wing of the school for a few days, which he said has resulted in other students wearing coats in classrooms to stay warm.

“This isn’t a warm building, to begin with,” Carlson said. “The heaters have been off in certain rooms and, like, in some of the chemistry labs downstairs, the heat’s been off for like half a week.”

Alpena Public Schools Superintendent John VanWagoner said two boilers in the school went down Tuesday — when the district had no school because of icy roads — but were back up and running on Wednesday.

“The control system is just really inoperable, so the dampers aren’t working, and we’re having some heat issues,” VanWagoner said.

The school has three boilers that are all 56 years old.

The heating issue isn’t just in the E-House section of the school. VanWagoner said the auditorium was 50 degrees Wednesday morning.

The district is monitoring the school and boilers in case outside temperatures drop from what they were on Wednesday. The temperature reached a high of 16 degrees on Wednesday, but are supposed to be in the 30-degree range the rest of the week.

VanWagoner said it’s warm enough to keep school open.

“We’re keeping an eye on it, and we have the heating and cooling company there trying to see what they can do to try to make it work,” VanWagoner said. “The boilers are running right now, it’s just trying to keep them up and get the electrical system to work to try to open the air dampers up so we can heat certain rooms in wings.”

The district Board of Education is considering asking voters for approval to sell $33.9 million in bonds in March. The bond sale would raise money for facilities repairs, including new boilers at the high school and other schools throughout the district.

The board will discuss the bond at its monthly meeting at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

Julie Goldberg can be reached at 989-358-5688 or jgoldberg@thealpenanews.com. Follow her on Twitter @jkgoldberg12.