Ok I have to stand up for the designers and engineers of the world. Schools are public jobs and therefore go to the low bidder in most cases. Low bid contractors can sometimes be nice, but many of them are the scummiest, most untrustworthy, cheapest people on the planet. I have been screwed on school projects plenty of times because a contractor did work that wasn't on the drawings without permission or talked the client into changing my design because it would "save money". We had to have twice as many notes and details on school jobs than other facilities because the contractors were such weasels and would use any excuse in the book to dream up change orders.

And this isn't even getting into contractors not bringing up design issues during pre-bid RFIs, purposefully screwing over the entire construction team because they know they can get a fat change order. Yes, sometimes engineers make mistakes. But when the contractor doesn't act like a team player and screws over everyone else to make some extra cash it's a sign of a lack of ethics and professionalism. We are all just trying to get the job done and do the best we can for the client.

edit: And if this truly is a fully automated system, this is a simple programming issue. Which is done by the contractor, not the engineer. I guarantee the engineer did not write in the specs or their lighting sequence of operations that the lights have to stay on all night.