CCSD will serve summer meals, but Wi-Fi buses won’t run

The Clark County School District plans to continue serving meals to children this summer, but wireless internet-enabled buses stopped running Thursday.

Wednesday was the last day of school, and now it’s summer break until Aug. 10 for approximately 325,000 students.

In a message posted Wednesday night on Twitter, the district wrote: “As we come to the end of this unprecedented school year, we want to send a special thanks to our educators, parents, students, and the community for coming together to support one another through the constantly evolving COVID-19 situation.”

School campuses closed in mid-March because of the outbreak. Distance learning continued for the rest of the school year, but thousands of students weren’t able to access it.

Each school will communicate with parents about how they can pick up their child’s personal belongings, the district said.

The district is offering an extended school year program for students who have a disability, and summer school will be provided through distance education.

For the first time, CCSD is a partner for the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District’s summer learning program, which runs through July 31, the library district announced Thursday. The program is online because of the coronavirus outbreak.

CCSD’s Wi-Fi bus pilot program — which launched May 1 and allowed children to access schoolwork and Khan Academy online activities — ended Thursday, the district said. CCSD has an online list of other places with free Wi-Fi hot spots.

Students who have a school-issued Chromebook — with the exception of graduating high school seniors — can keep the device over the summer, the district said.

CCSD plans to continue distributing laptop computers to students this summer “in an effort to encourage independent learning,” it said.

Also, CCSD will continue to provide free meals to children ages 2 through 18 during the summer. Current food distribution sites will be up and running through June 30, including on Memorial Day.

Meals are served from 7-10 a.m. Mondays through Fridays at most sites. The school district said hours and sites may change later this summer.

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.