Storm comes in time to extend break

LYNN – It’s the kind of winter miracle most students dream about, when school is called off for snow on the day school was scheduled to resume from winter break.In anticipation of the coming nor’easter, Lynn-area school administrators declared there would be no school on Thursday and today as early as noon on Wednesday, landing most students with an extra two days tacked onto their holiday break.The conditions had some cowering inside but others running for the hills. Lynnfield resident Mark Ellis, son Brian, 10, and his friend Aidan Burke, 9, took full advantage with a couple of sleds at Gannon Golf Course Thursday afternoon.Ellis said while his son enjoys school, he was happy for the chance to get plenty of sledding in on the extra day off.Burke said he wouldn’t mind if the break was extended on Monday. “Hopefully it gets snowed out again,” he said, before dropping to the ground to make a snow angel with Brian.Ellis took a few runs himself beside the two younger ones, before hitting a rock hidden under the snow. “I’m getting too old for this,” he said with a laugh.The Swanson family proved age wasn’t a factor with a three-generation toboggan at the hill. Lynn native Derek Swanson returned from Washington, D.C. to his favorite sledding spot when he was a child, this time with father, Bob Swanson, and son Paul in tow.Swanson laughed as Paul reached the bottom of the hill with a face full of snow. “I don’t think he’s seen this much snow ever,” said Swanson of his 4-year-old, who is growing up in the nation’s capital.Bob Swanson, a resident from the Sluice Pond neighborhood, recalled taking Derek to the same hill when he was a child. “This was an ideal time for them to come up,” he said, taking in the snowy scene.The extended holiday vacation only has one drawback, it will come at the expense of two days of summer. School Committee member Patricia Capano said Lynn does not build extra days into its calendar in case of snow.”We have to make them up as we go,” she said.According to the district calendar, the last academic day for Lynn schools is currently June 17, though that will change.”It’s not bad yet,” Capano said. “I know it’s early, but maybe it will stay this way.”