(Providence, RI) -- The Rhode Island Department of Education is allowing some schools to skirt the 180 days of education requirement due to emergency closures during the current school year. A spokesperson for the department tells the "Providence Journal" that 25 schools affected by power failures or broken water lines have been given the okay to fall one or two days short of the requirement. Officials say more than a dozen more requests are pending, while two requests from the Exeter-West Greenwich and Woonsocket school districts have been denied because they requested the waiver from a closure caused by snow.