On Jan. 16 at 8:26 a.m., power went out to over 35,000 PG&E customers in Hillsborough, Burlingame, San Mateo and Foster City, including many schools in the San Mateo-Foster City School District and San Mateo Union High School District. The SMUHSD district office lost power, but its battery was able to keep phone and internet services on for about an hour.
“All of our phones and internet for the entire district run through our knock box here at the district office,” said Superintendent Randall Booker. “We are underway in developing a backup generator [at the district office] so that internet and phones don’t go down when there’s a power outage, but that’s not in place yet.”
However, the district was still able to maintain contact with administrators on school sites.
“We have high-range walkie-talkies that work all the way from Capuchino,” Booker said. “I sent district office staff to Aragon, and [we] were in constant communication back and forth throughout the day.”
Many students left school throughout the day, filling out absence forms, calling parents to pick them up or simply walking off campus.
“It was the parents more than [anyone] else that were complaining,” said Dean Donna Krause. “Lots of parents were really upset that the kids were still here.”
Booker believed leaving school was more of a student-driven action.
“[I think] kids were calling their parents and saying, ‘I want to come home,’” Booker said. “I don’t think parents are sitting there and going ‘oh, the power is out, I want my kid to come home.’ … For the most part, parents rolled with it.”
Emails or calls from parents could not be received by the school, but parents and guardians could still pick students up.
“The protocol that we instilled was saying, ‘if you need to go home for whatever reason, a physical parent or guardian must pick you up from the back office right here in student services,’” said Assistant Principal Andrew Moore. “That’s the normal routine when we have power, but we just had to be sure that we saw someone.”
Students whose parents picked them up received an “N” on their attendance record for a verified absence that couldn’t be excused by Ed Code, but those who left without a parent were marked with an unverified, unexcused absence.
With much darkness and battery-operated sinks, some bathrooms remained closed or without running water for much of the day, prompting safety concerns.
“I was told to go sit in front of C hall in front of the bathrooms,” Krause said. “I was afraid kids were going to fall and hit themselves. It was a mess: one of the bathrooms became very wet and slippery. We called maintenance, and they were trying to wash the floor as best they could … I took towels and wiped the floors in the girls bathroom, and there was somebody from the district, and he was helping wipe down the floors in the boys bathroom.”
Booker believed sending students home at the time to be a bigger safety issue.
“We got lanterns and lamps in [bathrooms] and things like that,” Booker said. “What’s more safe? Keeping kids in school or sending them out? I have to think about the balance there, and throughout the day, I leaned more on keeping kids in school [being] safer in the long run.”
Booker and the district officially released students after 5th period, at 1:54 p.m. Power was restored by 2 p.m.
