On Monday, April 25, there was a widespread power outage which affected most of the cities of Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito. Power was out from approximately 9:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. The District Office and Principals of all schools were in communication immediately to assess whether there were any issues affecting student safety. It was determined that schools could be safely kept open. Any stories you may hear about school closures are probably referring to REALM Charter School, who sent their middle school students home due to lack of power and water. The only significant adjustment to our school day was the lack of access to technology, and Nutrition Services scrambled to serve cold food options, and as one principal put it, “We all learned how to picnic on the playground!” Teachers reported that while some of the younger students were a bit concerned about lights out, many students enjoyed the change in pace. The cause of the outage has been traced to a transformer fire in El Cerrito. At its height, more than 40,000 customers were affected by the outage.