Just turn off the goddamn panel. It's not that hard.

Put in a few time clocks beside the lighting panel. Hell just buy a cheap lighting contactor panel. Holy shit how is this a problem. You could hire an electrician and have this fixed in a day. With cheap parts. This is not an issue. What in the hell.

Unless the entire building installed some kind of lighting fixture that takes a data cable to turn them on and the fixtures themselves won't work without it - and I have never even heard of such an abomination - I don't see why you can't just tear out the automated control cabinet and put in something that's not stupid.

Even if you don't want to fix it you can still at least just turn the stupid thing off. What is it like hardwired right off a locked dedicated transformer off the utility with no disconnecting means?

Jesus I want to drive out there and just take a look at it to see what kind of cluster mess they have.

Reading the article it feels like this school district is getting scammed and skinned from here to Sunday by everyone they contacted.