Following the loss of four instructional days last week after the governor’s mandatory evacuation order for much of the county, the Mathews County School Board approved adding two days to the 2018-2019 calendar.

During Tuesday’s meeting in the Mathews High School media center, the board approved converting two teacher workdays—Oct. 8 and Nov. 5—to regular school days. The board also extended the final day of the first quarter marking period from Friday, Nov. 2 to Monday, Nov. 5.

Schools throughout the region missed much of last week after Gov. Ralph Northam issued the evacuation order for Virginia’s coastal Zone A effective at 8 a.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 11 as Hurricane Florence appeared to be headed toward the Tidewater area.

While the storm ended up essentially avoiding coastal Virginia, the evacuation order was not rescinded until late Friday morning. By then, Mathews, Gloucester and a number of other neighboring school divisions had already lost four d...