Some California students return to school as power outage continues

By Maricela De La Cruz

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    SACRAMENTO (KCRA) — The storms sweeping through California have kept crews statewide busy trying to restore power, including in Sacramento where some schools still don’t have power.

The Sacramento City Unified School District on Tuesday kept students of out five of its campus. Meanwhile, the Twin Rivers Unified School District kept its doors open despite still not having power.

Ashley Garibay was one of many parents who took their children to Michael J. Castori Elementary despite power not yet being back on. Her concern was a learning loss.

“Whatever education they can get would be great. If they need help at home, I can help them practice a little bit more just to keep it fresh, but I’m hoping that they can get the power back soon,” Garibay said.

Her daughter Chelsea described a dark and cold campus, although she enjoyed seeing friends, doing several activities and eating snacks during the half-day they were at the campus.

A spokesperson with the Twin Rivers Unified School District sent the following statement:

“The district realizes that any decision to remain open or to close due to inclement weather has a big impact upon our families. Given this, we believe that providing an environment with qualified teachers, nutritional meals, and safety from inclement weather is a necessary option for our families. We have communicated to parents and guardians that we understand if they do not feel comfortable having their children attend school at this time.

Over the last two years, our students have seen significant disruption to their academic and social-emotional growth as a result of school closures during the pandemic. We know there is no substitute for in-person instruction and that disruptions to this have impacts. We also recognize that for students who have socioeconomic challenges, these impacts are more severe and extend beyond instruction.”

Danielle Rucker was one of the parents who chose against sending their child to a school experiencing an outage. She felt it was too risky to do so.

“I’m a medical student so going back and forth, trying to figure out if they’re going to be here for an hour, five hours – I can’t be in school on the other side of town if something bad happens and I gotta try to get back here,” Rucker said.

The Sacramento City Unified School District is resuming classes at all of its campuses Wednesday after power was restored. A spokesperson told KCRA 3 that they are working to determine when the students will be making up the days that were lost.

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