Most area school districts have reached their allotted limit of snow days for the year, and it’s only mid-January.

Now, additional school days will be added to what was originally planned as the last day of classes for the year.

“This is more of a return to the way things had been,” SAD 44 Superintendent David Murphy said.

His district has taken four snow days, including Monday, plus another day when water wasn’t available because the lines for the Bethel Water District had frozen.

SAD 17 in Norway/Paris also has taken five days off, including one for a water problem, Assistant Superintendent Rick Colpitts said.

In the district he heads, SAD 39 in Buckfield, students have already enjoyed five snow days, so any additional snow day called by administrators means a school day will be added to the end of the year.

Plus, in Buckfield, Colpitts said plowers are having trouble finding places to dump the snow and keeping school entrances cleared.

He said his district usually gets the most snow days in February and March, so additional days will likely have to be made up in June.

This year the district is getting somewhat of a bargain with costs for snowplowing. SAD 39 contracts the work out and pays one flat fee, whether there is no need for plowing or 40 storms to plow.

Both SAD 21 in Dixfield and SAD 43 in Rumford sent their students home early Monday rather than cancel an entire day of school.

SAD 43 Superintendent Jim Hodgkin said youngsters went home at noon, while SAD 21 Superintendent Tom Ward sent his students home at 11:30.

That meant Region 9 School of Applied Technology students had to leave classes by 11 so they could catch their buses.

SAD 21, SAD 43 and SAD 44 send vocational students to the Mexico school.

SAD 21 and SAD 43 have used three snow days so far. And both districts schedule an end-of-class date in June without adding in snow days. As of Monday, that means school has been scheduled three days beyond June 9.

But that could change.

“During the last couple of years, we’ve used (snow) days in February and March,” he said.

Hodgkin said his district has canceled school about the same number of times this winter season as it did last winter.

“It’s more ice and cold that is the issue rather than the snow,” he said.

Along with classes in each of the districts, after-school games and other activities were canceled Monday and will be rescheduled.

In SAD 44, the school board canceled its regular meeting and will not meet again until Jan. 28. For SAD 21, which had planned a board meeting for Monday, that meeting was rescheduled for today.