Wayne County schools to keep some cafeterias open Wednesday
By Joey Pitchford
Published in News on May 14, 2018 3:42 PM
While Wayne County Public Schools will be closed for students Wednesday as teachers and staff head to Raleigh to demonstrate for higher wages, families in need of food services will still have a place to go.
Six WCPS school cafeterias will be open Wednesday, providing free lunch to students up to 18 years old, according to a WCPS press release sent today. Brogden Primary, Carver Elementary, Fremont STARS Elementary, Dillard Middle, Eastern Wayne Middle and Spring Creek Middle will all open their cafeterias from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. to ensure that students relying on school lunches are still fed.
Lunch will consist of turkey and cheese on a bun, garden peas, pinto beans, a fruit mix and milk. Adults who bring a student will have the option to purchase a meal for $3.50, according to the release.
The school system will also provide breakfast pastries and fruit for the approximately 200 students who will be at the W.A. Foster Center Wednesday.
The release also covered how schools will handle making up the instructional time lost Wednesday. For most, the answer is simple -- they will not make it up, as the lost day will not drop them under the 185 days or 1,025 hours, of instructional time required of them per nine months.
The only school in danger of not meeting that minimum is Eastern Wayne High School, due to several winter closures and a 30-minute planning/professional development block which takes place each morning. To make up the time, students began class 10 minutes early -- 8:15 a.m. -- today, and will do so for the remainder of the school year, according to the release.
As of 1 p.m. today, around 660 teachers and support staff members had requested leave for Wednesday, according to the release. That number is more than twice the requests the district had received by May 10, when Superintendent Michael Dunsmore announced the impending closure.