VALLEJO, Calif. (KRON) — A week after copper wire thieves cut power off to the entire campus of a Vallejo school is slated to reopen. The school’s superintendent speaks about the effort to get students and teachers back in class.
The lights are back on at Solano Widenmann Leadership Academy in Vallejo — a little more than a week after the entire campus lost power.
“We’re taking today to just test all our systems: our fire systems, our HVAC systems and school will be back to normal tomorrow,” said Vallejo City Unified School District Superintendent Ruben Aurelio.
Aurelio praised the around-the-clock work district staff and contractors put in to restore electricity. Repairs were initially estimated at up to $250,000 but ended up at about $160,000.
“People ask me, ‘well, where do you get that money from?’ it’s not like we’re flush with funds and have a bunch of dollars we can shift to these types of repairs,” Aurelio said. “It does impact our general fund. It impacts our decisions as we’re moving towards things like school closures. We’re moving towards right-sizing our district and budget reductions — all of this factors in.”
Aurelio says — although declining enrollment has severely impacted the school district’s state funding — the Widenmann campus is not on the list of schools that may potentially close to help balance the budget. The plan was always to repair the power grid after thieves stole copper wire triggering the outage Saturday, Jan. 25.
“I can’t tell you this is gonna lead to any lost jobs — that wouldn’t be a fair interpretation,” he continued. “But it is something that we have to account for.”
Aurelio says students had a choice between continuing their classwork at a neighboring campus or studying from home while repairs were made — adding that about 40% of the kindergarten through eighth grade students chose in-person learning.
As for the criminal investigation, police said there are no new leads to share with the public.
VALLEJO, Calif. (KRON) — A week after copper wire thieves cut power off to the entire campus of a Vallejo school is slated to reopen. The school’s superintendent speaks about the effort to get students and teachers back in class. The lights are back on at Solano Widenmann Leadership Academy in Vallejo — a little more […]
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