ILLINOIS — Power outages forced two Central Illinois school districts to cancel classes Wednesday.
Unity Seven Schools canceled classes across the entire district, while Mattoon Community Unit School District 2 canceled classes only at Mattoon High School.
District officials said the outage at Mattoon High School made it impossible to hold classes in that building, but other schools in the district continued operating as normal.
Families in Mattoon were advised to check their email for updates regarding extracurricular activities and transportation.
At Unity Seven Schools, Superintendent Dr. Brian Brink said the outage affected the district’s transportation building, making it impossible to safely operate school buses.
“We cannot safely fuel, dispatch, or communicate with buses,” Brink said in an email to parents.
Because transportation is required for many students, district officials said they could not safely operate schools. Brink also said that some parts of the district were experiencing power outages, so the day would not be converted to e-learning.
District leaders apologized to families for the short notice and said the decision was made once officials were able to fully assess the situation Wednesday morning.
