LEWISTON – If the snow keeps falling this winter, school children in Lewiston-Auburn may be celebrating Independence Day from behind their desks.

“It may be a patriotic last day of school,” Tom Morrill, Auburn’s superintendent, joked Monday as he looked out his office at near whiteout conditions. “Judging from my window, it’s pretty impressive out there.”

Monday marked the fourth time this season that bad weather forced schools in Lewiston and Auburn to close.

Each day will be tacked on to the calendar at the end of the school year. Maine schools must be open for 175 days. Snow days don’t count.

Instead of the final day being June 11, as planned, school in Lewiston-Auburn will continue until the 17th or longer.

“We’re heading into what are traditionally the worst parts of the winter,” Morrill said. Three or four more snow days would not be out of the question, he said.

School in July might be, though.

Rarely does school extend into the last week of June, Lewiston Superintendent Leon Levesque said.

“We go through cycles,” he said. The last couple of winters have been mild, but Lewiston children have had classes into the third week of June before, he said.

Though he’ll be watching the shifting calendar – shortening the summer for students, teachers and staff at local schools – saving days won’t be part of his consideration when forecasts again call for snow.

Keeping people safe is the biggest concern, Morrill and Levesque said.

Deciding whether to close is always a guess, Levesque said.

“You go on the best information you have,” he said. “Have I canceled school in the morning and regretted it in the afternoon? Yes.”

Of course, the forecasts swing both ways. The National Weather Service promised that the snow would be tapering off by 1 or 2 p.m., Levesque said.

“I can’t see that it’s let up at all,” he said, looking out his window at 1:20 p.m.