North Carolina governor Roy Cooper made an announcement on Saturday saying that starting on March 16th all schools K-12 across the state would close for at least two weeks due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

“I do not make this decision lightly,” Cooper said at a press conference “We know that it will be difficult on many parents and students,” 

Cooper has also appointed a new education and nutrition working group in order to ensure students and their families are taken care of during these closures. Coper even suggested calling in bus drivers to drive their routes and deliver meals or even leave some schools open for meal pickups. 

“I am standing up this new working group to ensure that children have enough food to eat, families have a care in safe places for their young children, and student learning continues,” Cooper said.

This announcement comes just one day after the emergency board meeting CMS held to determine their course of action. The board proposed that spring break be moved up and would have started March 19 and continued through March 27. Then after this spring break period, a reevaluation was going to take place to determine if any further action would be necessary. This plan was thrown out the window with Cooper’s announcement. 

The original plan from CMS was made in order to allow parents enough time to make arrangements for child care, and for teachers to develop lesson plans for online learning. 

It is unclear right now exactly how much time will be missed and what the future of the school year holds. CMS said they are looking into developing a form of virtual learning for students. CMS also said they will hold another board meeting to vote on whether or not to return to the original school calendar that includes the April spring break