UPDATE: Jan. 24, 2026 at 4:45 p.m.
Additional Reporting by Valentina Gudino
San Marin High School remains in session after a generator was installed on Jan. 22, 2026. The generator successfully restored power to the campus after an all-day outage on Jan. 21, 2026.
“[The generator] was delivered from Santa Rosa in the evening [on January 21], and they had to attach all the cables from the generator to the main power source,” Assistant Principal Shawna Torres said. “They worked all night doing that. We were able to get an electrician out here…they were able to determine some specific part that was not working and get it ordered.”
The electricians plan to install the part needed on Jan. 25. The generator, which was placed directly behind the mathematics building, raised concerns over the levels of noise it produced.
“The container of the [generator] has padded walls to help muffle it more, so we found that was helpful [at limiting the sound level],” Torres said. “We offered teachers who are on that side, if it is too loud or disruptive, to let us know and [we would] figure out an alternative classroom. No one circled back to us saying it was disruptive so that is good news.”
Athletic Director Tyler Peterson confirmed that wrestling senior night had to be rescheduled, as well as other sporting events scheduled at San Marin. For the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) department, the outage affected materials that had to be kept cold.
“We keep a lot of things frozen for many years and it is a lot of small vials of antibodies that cost hundreds of dollars, we had probably like $10,000 worth of stuff within the freezer,” Biotechnology teacher Gillian Boyd said. “I was able to come in the afternoon once we confirmed that we would have no power through the night and packed all [the materials] in styrofoam coolers and brought it all to my house and put it into an extra [refrigerator].”
While Boyd was able to collect all of the items before they spoiled, she is still concerned of how they might have been affected by not being kept cool for a certain amount of time.
“Some of the stuff in the fridge definitely got a little warmer than it should have so there is a possibility that we might have lost some of those reagents,” Boyd said. “I think I saved everything, we won’t know until we use a lot of our reagents.”
The San Marin administration hopes to be able to source their power normally by Monday, Jan. 26.
Original story: Jan. 21, 2026 at 7:54 p.m.
On Jan. 21, 2026, San Marin High School experienced a power outage during school hours. Since the outage started while school was in session, students were not able to leave school, per Novato Unified School District (NUSD) policy.
The power was out on campus before 8 a.m., but turned back on by the time students entered the classroom. After the second bell rang at 8:30 a.m., the power went out again. Staff and students were advised by Principal Andy Boone to continue their day on campus as scheduled. In an email sent out to staff, Boone said that the school was working with PG&E and the district maintenance team to sort out the problem. Some students felt that they were not able to learn to their best ability without electricity and WiFi at school.
“I wanted to go to sleep instead of do work because it was so dark,” senior Makayla Young said. “I felt like I couldn’t focus. I wish I could have gone home and been more productive rather than sitting in a dark classroom. I think [the administration] should have sent us home or at least sent a warning before school because they knew the power was out.”
Additionally, some teachers had to change their lesson plans for the day because required materials included Chromebooks and better lighting than what windows could provide.
“Everything we do depends on the WiFi and the technology,” AP Statistics and Algebra 2 teacher Shannon Zorn said. “I was hearing from other teachers that there were classes and classes of students sitting around doing nothing. Benchmark tests had to be pushed which causes chaos.”
Some students at San Marin were also in the middle of mandatory IXL benchmark assessments given to them three times per year in math and English classes.
“[The power outage] made it difficult to do what we needed to get done in certain classes,” junior Brooklyn Lee-Yon said. “In math, for example, we can’t do our IXL testing or complete any homework we have that requires Google Classroom to access.”
Many teachers observed students skipping class or getting signed out by their parents in the middle of the day. AP Literature and Composition and English 11 teacher Ryan Berberian had only 11 students in his 6th period AP Lit class.
“I had 15 freshmen when 6th period began,” English 9 and Multicultural Literature teacher Caroline McNally said. “And one student got a pass to leave after class started. I also had quite a few students get signed out during 4th period.”
NUSD sets aside days in the school year to have a reserve in case school has to be cancelled. If San Marin was to close their doors, students would have to be in school for another day at the end of the year. However, missing a day now and making it up later still disrupts teachers’ schedules and forces them to change plans at the last minute.
“I hope they fix it soon because otherwise all the calender-ing that I’ve done for all of my classes is gonna be messed up,” Zorn said. “If anything is going to be moved or shifted dramatically, that is the one thing that will not be great for me to recover from.”
In the evening on Jan. 21, Boone sent an email out to parents of San Marin students discussing possibilities of instruction for the following day.
“We are pleased to share that San Marin High School has secured a generator that will power the campus tomorrow, Thursday, January 22,” Boone said in the email. “As a result, school will be open, and students are expected to report to campus and attend classes in person. Should we experience any issues with the generator, we will send a family communication no later than 6:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. If that occurs, students will be asked to remain at home and prepare for remote learning for the day.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
