High winds cause outages, early dismissal at schools
By Lynsi Perry Musselman
With the extreme high winds Albany and the surrounding area received on Tuesday, March 4, the weather proverb “In like a lion and out like a lamb” seems to be true this March.
According to the National Weather Service out of San Angelo, Albany received wind gusts up to 60 mph for the majority of the day on Tuesday. The wind and dirt that came into the area brought power outages for many homes and businesses, Albany ISD being one of them.
AISD Technology Director Matthew Howard explained that the significant windstorm resulted in an extended power outage at Albany Junior Senior High, which subsequently impacting Nancy Smith Elementary. As a result of the extended power outage, students at AJSH were released around 1:00 p.m. for the remainder of the school day while the school’s dedicated technology staff worked to get all issues identified and resolved.
“While our battery backup systems are designed to sustain operations for up to 90 minutes, the duration of the outage exceeded this capacity, leading to a complete shutdown of affected systems,” said Howard.
He added that by midday the following day, all systems were restored and fully functional. Howard mentioned that the patience of the district was appreciated while the IT staff worked to address the challenges the extreme weather caused.
Even with the release of classes at AJSH on Tuesday, all students were counted present for the day. However, the amount of time missed does affect the amount of minutes Texas Education Agency allows AISD as a district to miss.
AISD Director of Student Services Leigh Lowe said that TEA requires districts to operate for a minimum of 75,600 minutes per school year. “When one campus misses a certain number of minutes in a day, both campuses follow the campus with the least number of minutes in that given day,” said Lowe. She noted that AISD still has roughly two and a half days banked for the 2024-2025 school year, after Tuesday’s secondary campus dismissal.
AISD does not plan to make up any minutes at this time. With the banked extra minutes and two bad weather days incorporated in the school’s calendar, neither campus is in danger of falling below the 75,600 minutes.
Forecasted for Friday is another round of strong wind gusts. While AISD has been on Spring Break this week, school employees will be working to ensure all systems are up and running for the return of students.
Shackelford County is also preparing in advance by enacting the burn ban for the county as of Monday, March 10.
