The power went out on the cafeteria side of the building during fifth period on Wednesday, Dec. 11. Students were left in the dark for most of the morning, with the power only returning during lunch.
Turing, DaVinchi and Hopper Commons all lost power, in addition to classrooms in the hallways nearby.
“Every time the power goes out, it tends to happen in the renovated part of the building because we’re on two different power grids,” English teacher Michelle Lang Boswell said.
Because the cafeteria did not have access to the power needed to heat and prepare food, meals that could be served cold—such as turkey and cheese sandwiches and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches—were provided for students who needed to buy lunch.
From presentations to tests to labs, Jefferson teachers and students alike adjusted to the blackout.
“We had a bunch of lab equipment lying around, [so] we needed to make sure everyone was safe in the lab,” physics teacher Margarita Kelly said. “People were pretty good about being [safe] moving slowly, guiding materials, returning everything.”
Some classrooms rely on a consistent power source to keep materials safe. For students in the DNA Science classes, this outage may have disrupted ongoing labs.
“I’m worried about DNA [Science] because we’re growing bacteria right now, and we have a generator that powers them,” Lee said. “I don’t know what will happen, [but] we saw some students working in [the] labs upstairs.”
Although most labs have backup generators, they can fail during severe power outages. For example, the computer science (CS) classrooms completed assignments in the dark due to issues with these generators.
“One of the backup power generators went off in [our] classroom, [so] it was pitch dark the entire time,” sophomore Shruti Bedekar said. “We were doing CS [while] holding flashlights, and we were typing with one hand.”
Some classes avoided the outage by moving to a different location and continuing regular plans.
“I did end up moving classrooms [for] my sixth period,” Kelly said. “They were doing [a] review and needed light, so we moved to the lecture hall and it was fine.”
Other classes were unable to find a new location due to the widespread impact of the outage. This created poor conditions for students who were taking biology tests during fifth and sixth period.
“First of all, [the power] shutting off threw everybody off,” freshman Diya Kotha said. “Then, the fact that people couldn’t see the question papers made it worse.”