BATON ROUGE - For the second day in a row, more than 200 students and teachers at CSAL Middle School arrived Tuesday to find no electricity in eight classrooms. It's not clear who is responsible for keeping them in the dark.

"This is a problem, and to me, it's an emergency of the greatest kind because I've got children out here in 40-degree weather ... and being asked to do their very best to learn," Principal Lamont Cole said.

Cole said the HES Facilities Management, the school's maintenance company, has not addressed the electrical problem.

"There is no way that I should report electricity being down and they tell me I'm going to be without electricity for two weeks, he said.

Some classes relocated to the cafeteria. Others were held in dark classrooms with no heat.

"I'm starting to feel like HES doesn't care about kids. And since all the kids here look like me, I'm starting to wonder how much they care about Black kids," Cole said.

Cole said problems with HES have been ongoing.

"We, as the adults, had to sit in the front office for three weeks in the freezing cold because HES did not come out and address the heating issues in the front office. Now that's adults. I've got kids sitting in an auditorium right now with no heat and a makeshift heater in the classroom trying to provide the heat," he said.

HES has been under contract with East Baton Rouge schools since 2022. The company website states it has more than 12,000 skilled team members across 28 states.

"If HES doesn't have the staff or the capacity to address the heating and electricity concerns at a school, then perhaps then they shouldn't have a contract with East Baton Rouge schools," Cole said.

WBRZ contacted HES representatives who blamed the problem on Entergy. The utility said its equipment has been upgraded to meet the school's needs.

"Entergy Louisiana responded to a power outage this morning at Madison Preparatory Academy (1555 Madison Ave., Baton Rouge) and, upon inspection and tests of equipment, found that electric load had increased on-site, which likely caused our protection equipment to operate as designed and result in a loss of electric service. Although we hadn’t been made aware of the increase in electric load, we did install new equipment (particularly, a larger transformer) to accommodate the amount of power needed at the property. That work was completed this afternoon. For any questions related to customer-owned electric equipment, please reach out to the school."

Cole said HES should be working on the school's problem but is not.

"I think HES needs to be held accountable for the neglect that they have shown as it relates to educating these children. Because we all have to do this together and they are failing on their part. And when we fail children, somebody needs to go to jail in my opinion," he said.

As of Wednesday morning, power had since been restored.