On Monday, May 20, teachers reported seeing electricity issues as early as 7:30 a.m.

“The teacher next [door] to me, Mrs. Loeffler, gets here at 7:30. She texted me and another teacher that something was happening,” math teacher Jill Harmon said.

Although Main Gym renovations began on the same day, the power outages did not occur as a result said Bill Branson, Rockwood Coordinator of Maintenance and Grounds.

“The power outage that occurred at Lafayette on Monday was an Ameren U.E. issue and resulted in a partial power loss to the building. It was not caused by anything in the school,” he said.

Although there were only partial outages at Lafayette, Pond Elementary, Wildwood Middle School and a few neighborhoods in the area had complete outages, leading to school being canceled.

“Power outages occur due to a wide variety of reasons and can occur at any time,” Branson said. “When power losses affect Rockwood schools we follow established protocols to ensure the safety of students and staff and we work with Ameren to restore power as quickly as possible.”

Lafayette only experience a partial outage, mostly affecting classrooms in the math and science hallways.

“There was no air conditioning [in my room]. I have the AC unit in my room so it just kept clinking, sounding like something was breaking. Then all the lights across the hallway and in our work office were just flashing,” Harmon said.

Many Math and Science Department teachers had to move rooms during final blocks due to the spotty electricity.

With a Honors Algebra 2 class of nearly 27 kids during the 1st Hour final block, Harmon had to move to math teacher Patricia Mabie’s classroom because lights and air conditioning in her own room wouldn’t work at all.

“I ended up moving downstairs to Mabie’s [room] because she had a smaller class and I had a class of 27 that needed to test,” math teacher Jill Harmon said.

Halfway through the 1st Hour final, the issue was reported to be fixed.