Power Outages Impacting Distance Learning For Some Oklahoma School Districts

Many Oklahoma school teachers are relying on computers to connect with their students during this time of Distance Learning but the rolling power outages are having an impact on those classes.

Several thousand OG&E customers in Sapulpa were impacted by the rolling power outages throughout the day, but teachers said they’re making the most of it.

Sapulpa Public Schools Teacher Kimberly McCallum teaches 2nd grade at Liberty Elementary STEM academy. She said she knew the rolling power outages were a possibility for the next few days, so she wanted to plan ahead. 

“Students could get on just when they were able to and still have things to do,” said McCallum. “Learning could continue, but they weren’t dependent upon connecting with me at a certain time on a Google meet. That way if their power was out or my power was out that they could still continue when they were able to.” 

She said she put her assignments and activities online ahead of time and recorded some of her video lessons so students could access them later if they didn’t have power. 

“I know in math, I skipped ahead a couple lessons to something that they really could learn and grasp without me there to explain it, where they didn’t need necessarily hands on activity for that,” said McCallum. 

“Our teachers are teaching from home with their technology, reaching out to students, but again those rolling blackouts cause the teacher to lose power and is unable to teach, or the student loses power and is unable to check in with the teacher on Google meets,” said Bixby Superintendent Rob Miller.

Superintendent Miller said he knows students and teachers are frustrated with the power outages, but it’s important to make these distance learning days happen when they can’t be in person. He said with the late start because of COVID, their snow make up days are limited. 

“In a typical year if we didn’t have technology in the hands of kids and we didn’t already have so much practice with distance learning then these would be days that we are simply adding to the end of the school year,” said Bixby Superintendent Miller. 

Both districts say it’s important to be patient during this time of uncertainty. 

“I know that our teachers are kind of struggling trying to manage that as best as we can and we’ve just encouraged all parties to continue to operate with grace and flexibility and kind of move as much as we can during this period of time,” said Superintendent Miller. 

“Extend grace, they’re doing the best they can those parents and kids and to the parents - the same thing, as parents we are doing the best we can with these outages and situations that are arising,” said McCallum. 

Both Bixby and Sapulpa will remain in distance learning on Wednesday. 

Sapulpa Public Schools said they’ve also lowered the temperature setting on the thermostats in buildings district wide to help conserve energy.