Marcus Pittman’s birthday may have turned out better than expected.
The Kinston High School sophomore anticipated making up work at school the first day back from winter break Wednesday, but a surprise power outage on campus led to an early dismissal from classes.
All students were released at 10 a.m.; staff and teachers remained at school for a meeting but were released later in the day. Some teachers were able to work at other locations if there was availability.
School is set to resume this morning.
“I’m kind of confused about it mainly,” Pittman said. “We just got back; shouldn’t all the problems be solved already?”
Whatever the difficulty, it was waiting for staff when they arrived on campus at 7 a.m. on Wednesday. One of Kinston High’s main classroom buildings — the V Building — was completely dark.
City of Kinston and Lenoir County Schools maintenance teams went on campus to repair an issue with an on-site power transformer. When workers attempted to restore power, the transformer blew.
Repairers from the city had to shut off all the school’s power around 11 a.m., taking up to six hours to bring it back.
Principal Angela Bryant said one of the buildings that lost power when the transformer went out was the cafeteria, which raised safety concerns for her students.
“I just felt it was in the best interest of the school — after talking with (LCS superintendent) Dr. (Steve) Mazingo to go ahead and dismiss school,” she said. “It was really a safety issue, as well.”
The V Building holds 15 classrooms, and she had to shift students into other buildings.
Bryant sent a message to parents and students through the school’s database around 10 a.m., which triggered non-stop phone calls to the front office.
“We’re going to work through it the best we can,” Bryant said. “It’s unfortunate that it’s the first day back, but it would have been unfortunate if it were the fifth day back.”
Some students realized they had class work to do after the holiday break.
“I’m glad we’re getting out, but then again, I need to catch up on work,” said freshman Janiya Miller.
As she waited with a friend in front of Kinston High for her ride, she added she’d likely use the early out day to sleep, but “it’s stuff that we could be doing here.”
Jessika Morgan can be reached at 252-559-1078 or at jessika.morgan@kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan.