Lenoir City Board of Education approved an interim bread supplier Thursday, a necessary action after Hostess Brands declared bankruptcy in November.

Food Service Supervisor Kay Bailey said though supply was immediately terminated, students' lunches did not suffer.

"Luckily the managers had a little bit of extra bread they had kept back in the freezer because that was like the Friday before Thanksgiving," Bailey said, adding the system did not have any shortages. An emergency supplier stepped in with a delivery after the Thanksgiving break.

With the supply termination being so close to Thanksgiving, Bailey said she was nervous, especially since they were not the only school system affected by the bankruptcy.

"You know it's going to be a good day when you get a phone call and go, 'by the way, you're not going to get any bread today.' That's literally what happened," Bailey said to board members at Thursday's board meeting. "Literally, on a Friday I spoke with them and we were due a delivery that day and we didn't get it."

The city bids with Loudon County Schools and receives bread once a week.

"We were panicking because there are three schools with us and nine in the county. That's 12 schools. You can't get Ingles or Food City to help with that much bread," Bailey said.

She negotiated "emergency" bread supplies from Institutional Wholesale Company, which had previously been awarded the grocery supply bid, until a new bread bid could be issued and awarded.

The board approved Thursday the sole bread bidder, Institutional Wholesale Company, to supply for the rest of the school year.  The board will rebid in the summer.

"It will be interesting to see come summertime what's going on in the industry and see if somebody else steps up," Bailey said.

The new bid came at a small increase over Hostess, which was the lowest bread bid in July.

The board also approved a revision to the LCBOE Policy 1.802 Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Americans with Disabilities Act Grievance Procedure.

"It is really specific things that parents would need to know in order to file a due process or a hearing notification, who they would need to notify within the system and out of the system," Laura Dunn, special education coordinator, said. "It is all things that were already in place, but I think the state thought everybody needed to put it in writing."