Fortunately for students in the Crenshaw County School System Hurricane Ivan won't effect their summer break.

Several schools across the state will lose holidays and possibly have school extended into the summer months due to school closings as a result of Ivan's devastation. Luverne, Brantley and Highland Home high schools were only closed for three days making scheduling makeup days a breeze.

The Crenshaw County Board of Education unanimously approved Superintendent Kathi Wallace's rescheduling plan at Monday night's Board of Education meeting, which also was rescheduled a week later due to the after effects of Ivan.

Students will now have to go to school on Tuesday, Oct. 12, which was originally scheduled as a Parenting Day. School will be in session until 1 p.m. that day before the students are released, so that parents can still visit the school and meet with teachers.

Monday, Jan. 3, which was scheduled as a teacher workday and Friday, April 22, which was the school system's Good Friday holiday are the system's other two holidays.

"I think everybody's going to be satisfied with our decision," Wallace said. "The students are still getting out at the same time. The last day of school for the children is May 19 and it still is. They're the winners in this."

Wallace said it didn't take rocket science to prepare the makeup plan for the board.

"Good Friday was a no-brainer, we had built that in as a weather day," she said. "We're all out on Oct. 11 anyways for Columbus Day and the students were really going to get two days off with the parenting day on Oct. 12, so that was pretty easy to figure too."

Teachers within system will also have to makeup the three days as well. They will be able to count April 22 as a makeup day since it was originally intended as a holiday for both them and the students. The other two days will be May 23 and 24, which is two days longer than scheduled for nine-month teachers.

Wallace believes the teachers will also be pleased with the Board's decision.

"I think they would rather have the days added on at the end then to take off part of the Christmas holidays or spring break," she said. "Teachers don't want to do that."

Wallace said the school system was fortunate to only have three days to makeup because there were three days available for makeup. If schools had closed longer, the board possibly would have had to take away from extended holidays.

"We were to the point where we were going to have to take Christmas, Thanksgiving or spring holidays from the children or add on to the end of their school year," Wallace said. "Three days will be easy to makeup during the school year. I think we were very fortunate to get back into school so soon and not to lose any more days to try to makeup."

In other business, the board also:

n Approved its five-year capital plan, which is used for facilities and improvements.

n Approved a resolution proclaiming the month of October as Parenting Month in Crenshaw County. The theme this year is "No parent left behind."