On Monday, the school day was interrupted for many Spring ISD students attending Westfield High School as the campus had intermittent power outages throughout the morning and into the early afternoon.
The district notified parents around 11:30 a.m., asking them to pick up their children, and told those who could not that they were communicating with transportation services to see if it could operate earlier bus routes.
Crew from CenterPoint Energy worked to restore the outages while parts of the campus operated on generator power. However, the generator’s capacity could not provide energy for all affected areas.
Despite these electrical issues, Sara Butler, Assistant Superintendent of Communications with Spring ISD, said most teachers continued instructing students who stayed at the school, and classes remained in session.
“Some of the areas of campus were a little uncomfortable, but we did have air conditioning on in a lot of the other areas,” she said. “All in all, learning kept going, but we just wanted to give parents the option to get their children if they were concerned.
Butler said it was slightly warm in the cafeteria and other areas of the campus during the outages. Once power was restored around 1 p.m., the district told parents they no longer needed to come to the school, as the day would end at its normal time.
According to a Spring ISD spokeswoman, students who were picked up were not required to return to classes.
Unlike Houston ISD, Monday was not the school district’s first day back from summer break. Spring ISD students returned to classes earlier this month, on August 10.
Butler said this is not the first time the district has had issues with its power, as it has already had to contact CenterPoint for assistance with a couple of incidents this school year.
“We’re hearing that a lot of campuses are experiencing the same thing with the power grid and issues,” she said. “We’re just keeping our fingers crossed that the rest of the day is good, tomorrow is good and we don’t have any more issues.”
Monday’s hot temperatures also caused problems for A/C systems at Houston ISD campuses as district technicians were sent to several schools to restore cooling air.
Spring ISD’s initial outage message sent to parents/guardians:
We wanted to give you an important update regarding the power outage on our campus. Currently CenterPoint is unable to provide an estimated time when power will be restored. However, please know that all students are safe and comfortable, and lunch is currently being served to all students.
As a result, parents and guardians are being asked to pick up their students as soon as conveniently possible. We will have extra staff on hand to facilitate pick up at both the Ninth Grade and main campuses.
We are currently working with Transportation to mobilize earlier bus routes. As we receive more information about Transportation, we will keep you informed.
Spring ISD’s notice of restoration:
Please be advised that power has been fully restored to our campus. Thank you very much for your patience and understanding as we worked with CenterPoint to resolve this service issue. At this time, if you have not picked up your student, please be advised that the school day is concluding at its normal time, and there is no need to pick up at this time.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2023.
