No decision has been made as to whether Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools will be open on Monday. School officials closed all schools on Thursday in anticipation of Hurricane Michael hitting the area with heavy rain and winds. Thirty-two schools were left without power after the storm, which is why districts schools did not reopen on Friday.
There are 175 schools in the district and some have pointed out that since the majority of CMS schools have power, they should have been allowed to reopen. CMS spokesperson Renee McCoy says because the power outages at schools were spread across the entire county and not any particular area, the district’s entire bus schedule would have to be reworked if schools opened Friday.
“It would have been a nightmare to redo the entire bus schedule to accommodate that kind of change,” McCoy said. “Our buses serve more than one school and we would have to reroute them around the schools with no power. We can’t turn something like that around on a dime.”
McCoy says some buses might have ended up with a handful of students and some might have no passengers if schools had opened Friday with a revised bus schedule.
In nearby Union County, where 11 schools were without power on Thursday, students were back in classes on Friday, with a two-hour opening delay. School officials say three schools are still without power and remained closed.
McCoy says over the weekend, CMS officials will visit all of the schools without power to determine where electricity has or has not been restored.
“This is a Duke Energy mission and we will track their progress,” McCoy said.
She says parents, students and staff will be updated as information becomes available about Monday’s school schedule.
