As of Monday morning, four schools in the Fairfax County Public Schools system remained closed because of lack of power to the buildings due to the after affects of Hurricane Isabel Thursday. In addition, two administration centers also remained closed. All other schools in the system opened two hours late.

Of the four schools — Annandale High in Annandale, Annandale Terrace Elementary in Annandale, Braddock Elementary in Annandale and Lemon Road Elementary in Falls Church — only Braddock and Lemon Road had yet to regain power by Monday afternoon. The two centers, Lorton in Lorton and Eleven Oaks in Fairfax, also had not gained power Monday afternoon.

"I have had no reports of structural damage to any of our buildings. There was some debris issues at some of the schools," said Paul Regnier, the schools community relations coordinator. "Once the water from the county water authority was turned back on, we had to have people go to each school and reset the water by hand. We've basically had people working from Friday to Sunday with no sleep."

The decision to open the schools late was made Sunday afternoon, said Regnier, to allow some flexibility with day care for parents, to provide some additional time to get schools online — 14 schools were without power Sunday evening — and for safety reasons. Regnier said that because of the amount of debris still in neighborhoods, it was decided to delay the morning commute until there was sufficient daylight.

The school-related activities that were canceled over the weekend have yet to be rescheduled.

Schools were also closed Thursday and Friday so some facilities could be used as emergency shelters. Regnier said all the schools will have to make up the missed time for those two days and the four schools that remained closed this week will also have to make up whatever time is missed as a result. The decision on how that time will be made up rests with the Schools Superintendent and the School Board. The county has three snow days built into the school-year calendar. If it uses more than that, the days are made up through the loss of holidays or at the end of the school year.