Instruction Turns Back to Basics in Power Outage

A school-wide power outage, resulting in complete loss of electricity on campus, occurred on April 9 during 7th period.

In addition to the malfunction of lights and technology within classrooms, the soda aquatics center’s pools heating and draining system ceased to function. This resulted in a cancellation of all activities within the soda aquatics center, including the swim team’s regular after-school practice. “It was really disappointing because we have a meet against Las Lomas on Friday and I wanted to practice for my events but I had to go home instead,” said junior Ally Lee.

The lack of electricity also forced teachers to abandon their original lesson plans involving technology. According to English teacher Tom Duffy, the blackout provided an opportunity to fulfill a long time request of the students.

“It was wonderful. We had been performing Death of a Salesman, the students had been asking me if we could read outside for a long time and suddenly the lights were out. It was a beautiful afternoon. We went out into the quad and read the play. It was awesome, ” said Duffy.

Associate principal Laura Lee was pleased with how teachers and students handled themselves during the incident. “From what I could tell as I was walking around campus, I saw a lot of teachers going back to teaching from the whiteboard and I saw some teachers brought their classes outside where there was a little bit more light. To me it appears as if things were moving along very smoothly,” said Lee.

Lee was uncertain about the cause of the blackout.