A White St. Patrick’s Day

It seems appropriate that during a winter that does not want to end we had a white St. Patrick’s Day which resulted in many school closings in Ocean County. 

That will present additional challenges for districts that are in many cases still finalizing their calendars to account for the extra days they were forced to close during this snowy and cold winter.  Many are now looking at the week of June 23^rd for completing their 180-day school year but being in school that late in the month is a problem because many older buildings don’t have air conditioning.

Some districts have altered their Easter break to make up days and in south Jersey there are schools that will use Saturday sessions something that I don’t believe any of the local districts are considering as options.  Regardless graduation will be later than usual for most high school seniors.

For those that don’t follow pro basketball there is a noteworthy streak taking place that might be one for the record books before it ends.  The Philadelphia 76ers lost a franchise-record 21^st consecutive game last night when they fell to the Indiana Packers.  The 21 straight losses is the sixth longest losing skid in NBA history and only five away from the record set by the Cavaliers four years ago.

The last time the Sixers won was on January 29^th in Boston. That was before the Super Bowl and a week before the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics.

Closed-minded people will never fully understand what an asset the Pine Belt Arena and John Bennett Indoor Complex have been to not only the Toms River Regional School District but the local economy.  The Indoor track complex just finished a winter in which it once again hosted most of the big high school competitions in the state which brought people from all over New Jersey to Toms River.  The same is true of the Pine Belt Arena which this past weekend hosted eight NJSIAA group basketball championship games and will be the site for Tournament of Champions action tonight, Wednesday and Friday.

Last month the facility was home to the state group wrestling championships along with the districts and regional’s.  Thousands of people know of Toms River because of these facilities and they have had positive impacts on not only the school district but area businesses.