By Jim Beller
Staff Writer

ROGERSVILLE - With the winter's third major storm wreaking more havoc with school schedules this week, Hawkins County students are rapidly using up their snow days.
    "We had 13 snow days built into the calendar," said Charlotte Britton, Hawkins County Director of Schools.
    "Three of those 13 days were approved by the state and our board of education for teacher staff development days.
    "Two of those days have already been used," Britton said, referring to October 6, 2009 and January 4, 2010.
    "We had 10 days built into our calendar for inclement weather," she said. "We will have used nine of our stockpile days (including one for Tuesday, Feb. 2). We will have one remaining day of our stockpile days.
    "When our stockpile days are depleted then we will first look at taking the remaining staff development day on Tuesday, March 2, 2010 as a regular school day for students," Britton said.
    "We will be able to extend an additional two days in the last week of school. Instead of having a staff development day on Wednesday, May 26, it would be a regular schoolday," Britton said.
    "We would extend the week with the last day of school on Friday, May 28 instead of Thursday, May 27," she said.
    The above dates are possible solutions. Any changes to the calendar
would have to be approved by the Hawkins County Board of Education.
    Rogersville City School has five more stockpiled days after Tuesday's cancellation.
    "We are on our sixth day," said Sherry Terry, Rogersville City School Director. "We try to be very careful in our use of them.
    "This is not typical. This has been a difficult winter," she said. "I believe last year we used about five or six altogether. We're already about where we were at the end of February last year. We're hoping the rest of February is warmer and gentler."
    Should RCS use all of its snow days, President's Day (Feb. 15) or Spring Break (March 15-19) would be sacrificed.
    "We would try not to add days on at the end of the year. That interferes with college coursework for teachers and summer vacations," Terry said.