ORANGE PARK — The Clay County School District will not hold classes Thursday and Friday to give parents, students and teachers time to rest and rebuild after Hurricane Irma’s impact Monday.

With more than 90,000 county residents still without power, the decision was also partly fueled by the fact that seven schools are still without power.

“Ultimately our decision not to extend the school day on Thursday and Friday was in order to make sure that our families, that our students and our communities have time to deal with the greatest experience that we’ve ever had in Clay County, which is the impact from Irma,” said Superintendent Addison Davis Wednesday at a press conference at Orange Park High.

Davis said he has been in talks with Clay Electric Cooperative during the storm and believes the seven schools should have power returned by Saturday.

“We’re confident that we’ll be up and running on Monday,” Davis said.

Students have not returned to classes since Gov. Rick Scott declared a state of emergency Sept. 7 in front Hurricane Irma’s path to Florida. The storm made landfall Sept. 10 as a Category 4 hurricane.

The storm dumped torrential rains on the Sunshine State and brought massive storm surges across the state and within Clay County.

Emergency officials began to minimize their reliance on risk shelters – the schools that serve as shelters during a natural disaster – and have begun to transition into more long-term shelters with the help of community partners and the American Red Cross.

“Today we closed Wilkinson Elementary [shelter] and Clay High [shelter] and the Keystone Heights Jr. Sr. High [shelter]. We were able to assist those residents and give them what needed to get back home,” said John Ward, Clay County director of Emergency Management.

Ward said emergency officials plan to close their special needs shelter in Lake Asbury over the next few days as more power is returned to county residents. Orange Park High’s shelter will also be phased out in the coming days.

Although students will not return to school Thursday or Friday, school administrators will return Thursday, and lunch workers on Friday to make the necessary checks on services to ensure a smooth transition back into normal classroom life.

The school district’s transportation staff are also assessing bus to determine if there are any potential problems that would prevent students from getting to school safely.

Davis said Wednesday he has already been contacted by employees whose homes have been destroyed by Hurricane Irma thanking him for delaying the start of school.

With so many in the county without power though, the district has resorted to as many lines of communication as they can to get messages to both parents and teachers.

“We have been trying to communicate in all forms through our school system,” Addison said. He said he has also been using “subsets of teachers…to be teacher leads and for them to reach out to their fellows and their peers in order to access information.”

As the days plod towards Monday, teachers and parents will have a clearer picture on what it will take to regroup and prepare to restart school. When that happens, Davis said, he and his administrative cabinet will work towards getting teachers the services they need to “get them back to normalcy in their community.”

A worry, Davis said, is the number of days Clay County students have been out of the classroom due to Hurricane Irma. Some parents worry that because of this, the school year will be extended to meet state time-on-task requirements.

Davis said he hopes Governor Scott will waive the two days children were out during the emergency declaration last Friday and this Monday. If not, he said, he will consider filling in half days to make up for the discrepancy.

“We think we have enough time,” Davis said.