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Judge: Reopen Puerto Rico school cafeterias or face arrest
By DÁNICA COTO
yesterday
AN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A judge on Thursday gave Puerto Rico’s education secretary 24 hours to open all public school cafeterias in the U.S. territory or face arrest as impoverished students struggle to obtain free meals amid the pandemic.
The ruling is the latest development in a lawsuit that several mothers and nonprofit organizations had filed in late April to demand the reopening of cafeterias that serve 292,000 students, of whom nearly 70% are poor, and had remained closed for some two months amid the pandemic.
Since then, the Department of Education has reopened only some cafeterias as activists warn that students remain in need of meals on an island of 3.2 million people with a poverty rate that is higher than any U.S. state.
Among them are the two sons of Delia Vicente, whose school cafeteria in an impoverished neighborhood in the capital of San Juan remains closed. Vicente said she and her husband canceled one cell phone contract and rely heavily on food stamps in order to afford food for their sons.
More:
https://apnews.com/6c7af4406970efb99babc818248e4082
