The Jefferson City Public Schools dismissed students early Tuesday after a water outage impacted one-third of the district's schools. Barring further problems, officials planned to resume classes today.
Students were sent home 31â„2 hours after the time their respective school started, to ensure that bus routes still would be staggered efficiently.
Water was restored by mid-day Tuesday, but students already had been dismissed.
David Luther, assistant to the superintendent, said the plan for today is to assume the problem would remain fixed, but that a boil order would be in place. "Our cooks have done this before. They'll be here early to get prepared and serve breakfast," he said.
He noted the district on Tuesday purchased bottled water to be distributed in the days to come. He expects bathrooms to be in working order today, with sanitizer dispensers available nearby.
"We should be OK to have school tomorrow," Luther said Tuesday. "If for some reason water is not running at 5 a.m., we may have to cancel. But we don't think that is going to be the case."
East Elementary School Principal Julia Martin said she'd never experienced a day quite like Tuesday. Initial reports were uncertain how long the outage might last, leaving school personnel without a clear path of response.
Administrators initially hoped it could be repaired quickly, but when a speedy resolution wasn't in sight by mid-morning on Tuesday, "we decided to cancel school," Luther said.
By 12:30 p.m., most of the schools in the district were empty.