SALISBURY — May 16 will be an optional teacher workday for Rowan-Salisbury Schools, the Board of Education decided Thursday.

Students will not have to make up that day. The summer meals program will remain active.

Teachers from across the state plan to attend a protest in Raleigh that day to push for better pay and better working conditions.

RSS joins several districts across the state that have declared the day a teacher workday or are allowing teachers to take an annual leave day. Others include Charlotte-Mecklenburg, Durham, Chapel Hill-Carrboro, Wake County and Guilford County.

 

School administrators have said that so many teachers have asked for that day off that there would not be enough substitutes to cover classes.