Lorena ISD will be open on Wednesday, September 18 and will have a normal school day following power outage issues on Tuesday.

Please see the message below from LISD Superintendent Dr. Joe Kucera.

9-17-24

Dear Lorena ISD Community,

This was not a normal school day.  I would like to thank all the parents/guardians for your patience throughout the process today.  I want to thank our Lorena Fire & Police Departments as well as the City of Lorena for all their help.  In addition, I would like to thank all the area first responders who came to Lorena to assist with today’s incident.  We were able to keep students safe and get everyone home due to the collaborative efforts of Lorena ISD faculty and staff and area first responders.

Please know today’s incident was very fluid in nature.  It started with smoke at the middle school and the smell of smoke at the high school due to electrical surges caused by an accident that impacted Oncor.  This required both campuses to be evacuated to Leopard Stadium.  The elementary lost HVAC and then power, but had no issues requiring them to evacuate.  The primary school had no issues until a significant time later when students and staff were evacuated due to a smell inside the building.  The Lorena ISD maintenance department turned off the power to the entire district to help eliminate additional equipment damage due to power surge issues.   

In an effort to keep our students safe, we used our reunification procedures to dismiss students from the middle school and high school beginning at 10:00 am.  We dismissed the primary and elementary school using normal procedures, but required parents to sign students out with a photo ID.  LISD made the decision to run buses beginning at 11:00 am to assist with the dismissal process.  

I want to thank everyone for their patience during the dismissal process. We wanted to do everything we could to ensure our students remained safe throughout the process.  We will be meeting with the Lorena Fire Department, Police Department, City of Lorena, and our administrative team to debrief the incident today. Together, we will continue to streamline our processes and procedures. 

We have been given the all clear to have school tomorrow.  There may be a residual smell of smoke in the front foyer of the middle school.  We had multiple AC units in the District impacted by the electrical surge.  The AC units are in the process of being repaired and should not impact the school environment.

We look forward to having everyone back in school tomorrow.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.

Joe Kucera, Ed.D.

Superintendent