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While all Bangor schools are closed for two weeks starting Monday, any student can still get two free meals a day.





Through pick-up sites and delivery services available for those who need it, Bangor will continue feeding students throughout the school closure. On Tuesday, the school will also provide students with take-home packets with two weeks’ worth of learning material. Teachers will be in touch with students to answer questions and provide guidance.

Bangor schools Superintendent Betsy Webb announced Saturday that all 10 of the city’s public schools would shut down as a precautionary measure against coronavirus. The closure could continue beyond those initial two weeks, Webb said Monday.

The school department on Monday started offering meals for pickup at five schools: Abraham Lincoln, Downeast, Vine Street, Fairmount and James F. Doughty. Parents or students can pick their food up between 12 and 1 p.m. every weekday.

“You do not have to be enrolled at one of those schools to get lunch there,” Webb said. “Any Bangor student can go to any site to get the lunch and breakfast bags.”

No one will be allowed inside the school buildings. The school department has designated employees who will bring meals out for parents to collect.

The department is also working on determining neighborhood drop-off sites for meals for parents who cannot pick them up at the designated school sites. School buses will be used to drop off bagged breakfasts and lunches for students, Webb said.

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The after-school meal program at Fairmount School will not continue through the closure.

As for learning materials, a pick-up system is in place for Tuesday, when parents have been instructed to pick up materials teachers have prepared for their students during the closure.

Bangor High School parents or students can pick up their learning materials at the high school from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, using a similar system to the meal pick-up: designated runners will bring students’ belongings to parents.

Middle school parents can pick up their children’s packets at James F. Doughty School or William S. Cohen School from 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, and all elementary school parents can go to their child’s school for packets from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

“Parents should call us if they can’t pick up the take-home packets as well,” Webb said.

“If they contact us, we’ll figure out how to get the packets to them.”

The packets will include books and other material needed to learn but are meant more to maintain students’ skills than to teach new material, she said. Teachers will evaluate packets when school resumes to determine where students stand.

“You can’t replace high-quality instruction in the classroom,” Webb said. “What this is is the best that we can do in the situation that we have been faced with.”