DPS (Update: Power to the People...That Count!)

DPS students losing time in class as the power fails

Analysis finds that 31 schools lost atotal of 43 days of instruction

By Chastity Pratt Dawsey Detroit Free Press Education Writer

   While the city prepares to hand over its limping power system to DTE Energy, Detroit students continue to see their classes canceled due to frequent outages.

   For the 2012-13 school year ending June 13, a total of 31 schools in the Detroit Public Schools district lost power for one to four days each due to problems with the Detroit Public Lighting Department, according to an analysis obtained by the Free Press. That means a third of all school buildings in DPS experienced at least one power outage during the school year.

   Typical reasons for outages were: downed lines due to weather, theft of wires, shutdown while crews repair service to another school and failure of transformers and switch gear, according to DPS.

   When all of the lost instructional time at the 31 schools is added together, it totals 43 days lost due to problems with the city’s power system. On Friday at Holmes Elementary-Middle, a school that suffered four power outages during the normal school year — more than any other school — the power was out again and classes were canceled.

   “Anytime we lose hours of instruction, it does impact student achievement,” said Karen Ridgeway, the DPS superintendent for academics. “We try our best with our extended year and with our summer school to fill in the gaps, but we’d much rather have those hours of instruction during the school year.”

   Kevyn Orr, Detroit’s state-appointed emergency manager, announced June 27 that the city is getting out of the energy distribution business and has begun the process of transferring its customers to DTE Energy, which provides electricity to the bulk of southeast Michigan. The transfer process is expected to take five to seven years.

   In the meantime, the city is working to establish a contract to trim trees around power lines to reduce the risk of broken limbs and trees ripping down wires during storms.

   Also, the department wants to install a secondary source of electricity to keep the system going in the event of an outage, said Richard Tenney, lighting    “The process of strengthening the power system is continual and incremental,” Tenney said. “The first step is stabilization. The next step is improvement.”

   The lighting department also is considering using aluminum instead of copper when wires are stolen, because though it is less reliable, unlike copper, aluminum has no significant value to thieves who steal and sell scrap metals.

   During the next five to seven years, DTE will construct and expand its own distribution equipment to directly service former lighting department customers, and the city will decommission its current equipment.

   But it won’t take long for lighting department customers to become DTE customers.

   Over the next six to 12 months, DTE will replace all current lighting department electricity meters. Following that process, current lighting department customers will become DTE customers and will see more reliable response to problems while DTE works to install the new electricity distribution grid to replace the old system.

   “The schools will have an ability to call a specific number to report outages, receive prompt answers such as outage duration estimates and outage resolution information,” said Alejandro Bodipo-Memba, spokesman for DTE. “The PLD system will be monitored for specific customer concerns.”

   That means schools might get more prompt response to problems, but might not get any relief soon from the threat of power outages. Summer school lasts four more weeks, coinciding with an active storm season, when outages typically occur.

   “The schools will still be fed from the PLD system, therefore no change is anticipated for the near future,” Bodipo-Memba said.

   The lighting department’s 100-year-old system provides power to about 115 customers at 1,400 sites, according to the city.

   Most of the customers currently on the city electric grid are businesses and institutions such as Wayne State University, Joe Louis Arena, Cobo Hall and the Detroit Institute of Arts. The utility is a financial burden for Detroit, operating at an average loss of about $30 million a year for the past five years, and has not had any investment in about a decade.

   “The equipment is old, poorly maintained, thieves are stealing it and (PLD hasn’t) adequately cleared trees out of the lines,” said Beau Taylor, an expert in the mayor’s office who is working on public lighting issues. “All in all, this exit is a good thing.”