Putnam County schools will be closed Thursday as the area anticipates potential tropical storm-force winds and flooding conditions from Hurricane Dorian.
Schools were closed Monday for Labor Day, and the district had announced plans to be closed through Wednesday.
Superintendent Rick Surrency said the decision was made Tuesday afternoon to close schools Thursday in part because six schools are in use as emergency shelters.
“The shelters were a consideration because we’ll have to clean up after the shelters close,” Surrency said.
“We also may have families out of town. We wanted to give them the information now so they won’t have to try to get back in town tomorrow.”
Surrency said a decision will be made in the next day or two regarding Friday classes and school-related activities. Thursday is the third day this week schools have closed because of Dorian.
The school district has two hurricane make-up days built into the academic year calendar – Oct. 15 and Jan. 7. Surrency said a decision would be made at a later date regarding a third make-up day.
“Our neighboring districts have canceled classes for Thursday and we like to be consistent with what others are doing,” Surrency said.
“A lot of thought went into it because we don’t like to cancel school unless we absolutely need to. Everything pointed to this being the best idea and we think it’s the right decision.”
Putnam County is expected to start seeing wind and rain from Dorian early Wednesday morning.