http://www.times-georgian.com/pages/full_story/push?article-Elementary+school+blackout+costs+system+-50-000%20&id=3525199-Elementary+school+blackout+costs+system+-50-000&instance=home_news_top
Carrollton Elemen-tary School students got an unexpected three-day weekend last week after the school experienced electrical problems that will end up costing the system in excess of $50,000.
The circuit breaker for the school first tripped about two weeks ago, but maintenance was able to get the system up and working again with no problem. They called in a company to test the breaker anyway. The company came to the school to test it on Thursday and the breaker tripped again. This time the staff and the electricians were not able to get it running again. By early morning they installed a refurbished circuit breaker, which also tripped.
The system had no choice but to cancel school Friday, while the electricians tried to fix the problem. The system was able to notify nearly all the students before they left for school.
“SchoolCast worked great,” Superintendent Tom Wilson said. “We only had 24 students show up that were on buses. The bus drivers were informed don’t leave a child at a bus stop. If the parents are there, tell them school was called. Most students were not there.”
The system rented a generator at a cost of $15,000 for a week and the work continued all weekend. Monday morning school resumed using generator power and only running what was necessary for school.
“We just put the school on what was necessary to have school,” Steve Spofford, chief operating officer for the school system, told board of education members at their work session on Thursday. “We had the lights on, turned off all the low-voltage, air conditioners and it ran fine.”
The electricians found and installed a new circuit breaker, which cost about $20,000, and the power has stayed on without incident.
“As of today, it’s been running for almost 48 hours, and we’re confident we fixed it,” Spofford said. “But we have this generator until Sunday and I want to keep it until Sunday, just in case.”
It’s been a very expensive problem. Aside from the cost of the new circuit breaker and rent for the generator, the generator burned through $50 of diesel fuel an hour. The system doesn’t know yet how much the labor costs will be for the work.
During the course of the work, the electricians also found a broken water line on one of the drinking fountains which was flooding one of the hallways. The maintenance staff was able to turn off the water, saving the school some water damage.
“If we hadn’t found that, over a weekend you can imagine the damage,” Spofford said. “That probably saved us as much money as it cost us.”
Because of the problem, the system is now asking teachers to remove all decorative lighting, refrigerators and microwaves from their classrooms to decrease the strain on the circuit breakers in all the schools. Over the weekend, the system was able to save all the food in the school cafeteria, but some teachers had small refrigerators in their classrooms that contained food which did spoil.
“They have lounges, that have refrigerators and microwaves,” Wilson said. “It’s time that we move away from that. Sure it’s a convenience for a lot of our teachers, but we feel like it saves us money and it certainly doesn’t help the strain that’s put on these electrical systems.”
• Enrollment at the city schools is up by 109 students this year over last year, Wilson told board members. There were 4,238 students enrolled as of Aug. 20, 1,457 elementary students, 609 middle school students, 945 junior high school students and 1,227 high school students. After Labor Day, when the official count is taken, he expects enrollment to be up about 125.
• The board members also unanimously approved a letter of intent that would make them eligible to apply for interest-free loans of federal stimulus money for capital projects.
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