PRINCETON (PRESS RELEASE) - Snow has closed Mercer County Schools four times this winter: January 3rd, January 13th, February 20th and 21st . To accommodate, the county has converted to regular instructional days four Outside School Environment (OSE) Days scheduled for March and April.
March 9th, March 23rd, and April 20th will now be regular instructional days for students. March 16th will be an IS (Instructional Support) Day when buses do not run but faculties report, and students may come in for tutoring, rehearsals, or other purposes by pre-arrangement.
All told, this winter has been exceptionally mild. Last year, students missed six days even before Christmas vacation. In Spring 2010, the district suffered so many snow days – 23 – that it hosted a Spring Break Academy to help students recover.
Like many other more mountainous southern counties, Mercer must schedule into its calendar eight non-instructional days after March 1 that can be converted to regular school days if needed.
Although district officials had hoped to be able to go ahead with Monday's IS Day, widespread power outages darkened 8 school buildings and many employees fell within the 39 percent of the county without electricity. When outages continued into Tuesday, school was cancelled again.
