A severe downpour and high winds overnight left over 177,000 people in North Texas, including Mansfield residents, without power this morning. After deliberating whether to activate the emergency lights for the campuses without power, Mansfield ISD officials decided early this morning to cancel school.
“The safety and security of our students is our primary focus, and all schools will be canceled today, Wednesday, March 29, 2017,” the statement from MISD said.
Timberview, Summit, Ben Barber, The Phoenix Academy, Coble, Jobe, Asa Low, Janet Brockett, Louise Cabaniss, Carol Holt, Nancy Neal, Erma Nash, Martha Reid, Tipps, T Jones, Morris, Donna Shepherd, Transportation, 6th Ave Transportation, Maintenance, RLA Stadium, and the Rendon Annex are all among the MISD properties without power.
“I think there will be no major impact to students at the high school level today. The loss of an A day (which may be made up later this school year) could have an impact on learning. I am positive that our teachers and students can recover from missing this one day,” Principal Dr. Shelly Butler said. “Additionally, I am impressed that our students can still access learning materials electronically through applications like Canvas and Google Classroom. If they want to get caught up on assignments today, they have the opportunity to do so electronically if they have power at home.”
The inclement weather has affected caused damages throughout the community. Junior Dalton Mix had a tree fall on his truck.
“There are just some scratches on the hood, but other than that it is all good,” Mix said. “I’m stoked [about school closing], like a kid on Christmas. But it was also a bad choice [to cancel school] because people had testing to do today and other things.”
STAAR and EOC testing was scheduled to take place today. Fifth and eighth graders were scheduled to take the STAAR Reading Assessment, and the makeup tests for the STAAR Writing Assessment for elementary students and EOC English I tests were to be administered today. They are to be rescheduled to be administered on Friday, March 31.
“Since we do have some online testing taking place at Legacy, there is always a possibility of an issue arising due to the power outage in the city,” Dr. Butler said. “For now, things look like we are ready to go for tomorrow.”
Students will not be required to make up March 29.
