Parents of students attending P596x said the air conditioning unit at the school is decades old and not operational.

They said their children, many of them students with special needs, are learning in classrooms in the uncomfortable heat.

One mother said the students range from 3 years old to 11 years old. She said many of them are non-verbal.

Eileen Irizarry-Ramirez, a concerned parent and PTA president, said she reached out to the Department of Education on multiple occasions to rectify the situation.

"The DOE is not doing their job. They keep trying to pacify us. We will not remain quiet," she said.

According to the city, there currently is no law mandating working air conditioning in public schools. But parents say this negligence breaks a different agreement.

Parents said each student has their own IEP, or Individualized Education Program, a legally binging contract allowing children specific accommodations based on their individual needs.

Parents like Rebecca Ojeda said her two sons have chronic conditions allowing them to faint easily and have frequent nosebleeds. She said her specific IEPs for each child lists the necessity for working air conditioning in their classrooms.

Mother Shaniqua Miller said her daughter's IEP also requires working air conditioning.

"The city, the state is in violation of my daughter's rights. Because in her IEP, she's mandated, meaning it is within her lawful right to at least have AC," said Miller.

News 12 crews witnessed parents picking up their children mid-day to escape the heat.

News 12 reached out to the Department of Education.

A representative responded stating, "As temperatures rise, we will always work to keep our students and staff cool and safe. We are working closely with our partners at Con Ed to ensure that schools have sufficient power to cool their classrooms and quickly repair any outages. Principals were instructed to move students to classrooms with working AC during any partial building outages.”

Parents tell News 12 the school was directed to move students in hot classrooms to cooler spaces. But parents say this temporary fix is creating more issues. They say their children's classes are merging with others, exposing students with special needs to a volume of people than they cannot handle.

Any little shift within their routine can result in behavior challenges such as tantrums, meltdowns, regression of ultimate magnitudes," said Miller.

One father, Robert Cruz, applauded the school's administration and staff for their efforts to keep students safe.

"The programs are amazing, they're results oriented... it's just the infrastructure," said Cruz. All parents were in agreement that the issue is above the school.

Families said they will continue to fight until the air conditioning unit is completely replaced.