3 schools closed due to outages

Three schools in the Public School System had no choice but to let their students out early because of a power outage that took longer than expected.

Koblerville Elementary School, Hopwood Junior High School and Saipan Southern High School dismissed their students at 11am yesterday. There are about 1,100 students at Hopwood and 747 at Saipan Southern High. The number of affected students at Koblerville Elementary was not immediately available.

According to Hopwood principal Christine Masga, the power went out at 6:30am yesterday and had not come back on by 11am.

“When we all came in, the power was already off. We expected a two-hour block but today was really long,” Masga said.

She said the school called the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. several times but it was only in their last call that they discovered that the power outage was expected to go on much longer.

Saipan Southern High principal Peter Le’au said the school thought the power outage was only going to last up to two hours, “that’s why I kept them [students] longer.”

“We’re not supposed to keep students on campus should the power outage last longer than two hours,” Le’au said.

Le’au said this was the first time he was forced to send his students home due to the long power outage suffered by the school yesterday.

Masga said that the power outages have been effecting instruction.

“They usually turn the power off from 1pm to 3pm. But the power had gone out in the morning and took much longer than usual,” Le’au said.

“It’s been very hot outside lately and some of the rooms don’t have windows. We have also been modifying our schedules to make sure that the kids go to all subject areas,” said Masga.

She said the school understands the situation, “but please let us know [of power outages] in advance.”

Masga said that if the school had known about the extension of the power outage, they would have made preparations such as water for backup in the restrooms or scheduled a Health & Education Day event.

“All we’re asking is to please let us know in advance, even if it is within that time when the power had gone out. As soon as they have an update, announce it on the radio, or fax that information to the PSS Central Office so that our Commissioner can call us and let us know,” Masga said.

PSS is scheduled to conduct its SAT-10 tests to grades 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 next week.

Masga said she is hoping that the power outage will not affect the SAT-10 testing of the students.

“It’s going to be very hard for us. All we’re asking is for more communication because this is not helping,” Masga said.

Le’au hopes that power outages next week would occur after school, “so that the students can take their tests.”

He said it would be difficult for students in some of the classrooms without windows as it would be “very hot in those rooms if the power goes out.”

Another unexpected power outage issue at the schools is the lunch that is being paid for by PSS.

“PSS is already paying for those lunches and we had to let our students out early. That’s a loss,” Le’au said.

Classes in all three schools are expected to resume today.