On Oct 16, 2024, more than 5,000 households as well as schools around San Diego were without power for approximately five hours. Magnolia, Kelly, Jefferson, Carlsbad High School, Carlsbad Village Academy, Carlsbad Seaside Academy, and Valley Middle School not only had to stop instruction but almost shut down due to a fire hazard. 

The San Diego Gas and Electric outage map reported that the outage began around 9 a.m, and wasn’t restored until almost the end of the school day, around 2 p.m. The loss of power was reportedly caused by a foreign object coming into contact with a San Diego-based power line owned by SDG&E. 

At Carlsbad High School, one of the schools without power the longest, junior Alessia Mattucci described how her classes handled the loss of instructional minutes. 

“It was definitely different, I think everyone was a little scared,” Mattucci said. “We couldn’t print any paper worksheets, or have instructional time on the smart board.” 

It was not only a shock to the students, but also to instructors that had to troubleshoot while on a powerless campus. 

Peggy Seipp, a substitute teacher in the district, was in charge of a classroom that was out of power. 

“I just tried to keep everyone involved, though it was definitely hard to keep students focused as I was only a substitute that didn’t know any more about the situation than they did,” said Seipp.

Overall, the outage tested students’ and teachers’ adaptation skills but fortunately didn’t take a toll on the classroom for more than a couple of hours.