Hamilton’s Catholic board forced to delay start of virtual school due to power outage

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Published September 15, 2020 at 2:35 pm

Monday’s (Sept.

Monday’s (Sept. 14) widespread power outage heavily impacted some schools across Hamilton who were welcoming back students for the 2020-21 school year and the repercussions are even impacting those who attending class virtually.

Several schools were forced to dismiss students mid-morning on Monday and boards grappled with technical issues related to the power outage.

The Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic District School Board (HWCDSB) announced later on Monday that due to the outage, the start of virtual classes has been delayed until Wednesday (Sept. 16).

“We appreciate the eagerness of children to start school and we have to apologize for this unavoidable delay,” wrote the board’s Assistant Superintendent of Education, Greg Tabone, in a letter to parents and students on Monday.

“We will have to delay the start of the Virtual School one more day to Wednesday, September 16, 2020, at 9:00 a.m. so that we can coordinate all the new students who have just enrolled in our Virtual School.”

The outage made it impossible to complete teacher assignments and provide students who elected for virtual school to receive the information required to access their online classrooms.

“Please be aware that this situation should be remedied in the next day,” Tabone wrote.

Tens of thousands of Hamiltonians were left in the dark throughout the day on Monday due to a power outage caused by a ‘supply problem from Hydro One,’ according to Alectra Utilities.

At one point, the utility provider was reporting more than 50,000 homes and businesses across Hamilton were affected.

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