"He would wake up in the morning crying he didn't want to go school," Smith said in September 2011.
Last fall, she started to circulate a petition to ask the district to start classes after Labor Day to minimize the chances of hot classrooms in the 79 buildings in the Denver Public School district that have no air conditioning.
Instead, the district agreed to move this year's start date back 10 days to August 27th. Brown says this was a compromise that didn't work.
"I kind of thought when they changed the school year last year, I said we'll wait and see what happens this year," Smith said. "Here we are and it was 97 degrees when we started school."
But, Denver Public Schools officials have been working to address the heat issues.
"We were very fortunate to do lots of work over the summer, really assessing all of the schools, looking at air flow, looking at needs for other cooling measures," said Patricia Slaughter, assistant superintendent for elementary education.
Slaughter says in addition to the later start date, the district is now giving principals the authority to call for early release days if the temperatures seem to be too hot for the next day. The district is also trying different methods such as a pilot program at Greenlee Elementary placing high-powered fans around the building.
"We have fans in every classroom as well as the large fans which you see here in the hallways as well," Slaughter said.
The district is also asking voters to approve a $466 million bond issue, the largest in state history, to help with a variety of construction needs including cooling old buildings.
"We have actually identified $25 million in the bond that would support air conditioning cooling measures," Slaughter said.
But, Smith does not see the need to raise property taxes. She says the answer is simple: move the start of the fall semester back into September.
"It has been in the 90s this whole week and after Labor Day, the middle of next week, the forecast is supposed to be in the 70s," Smith said. "To me, it's like we have way to prevent this, so why aren't we?"
(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)