MIAMI -- Despite the progress being made, electrical outages are the biggest reason South Florida schools are still shut and shuttered up.

Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Rudy Crew said schools might reopen Thursday, NBC 6's Diana Gonzalez reported.

Images: Schools Prepare To Reopen

As of Monday evening, 45 Miami-Dade County schools had no power, 73 had wires down on or near campus and there were no working traffic signals around 134 of the schools.

Crew met with Gov. Jeb Bush Monday afternoon to discuss several issues.

"We've had a whole community -- I'm sure he's very much aware of, since he's lived here -- we have a whole community of people who are devastated by this and the cost of doing business is high. We want to be sure that, as he formulates his budget and as he thinks about what is a high priority for him educationally as well as financially, that the school systems in South Florida are given due consideration for these concerns," Crew said.

When asked about a reopening date for Miami-Dade County schools, Crew said, "We are shooting for Thursday."

At the command center for Miami-Dade County Public Schools, principals call in to report the status of their schools and the answers from Florida Power & Light keep changing.

"Well, right now, we still have a little more than 50 of our schools without power, and we're being told that their best estimate at this point is that those schools would be up and running on Thursday morning, which means they would finish them sometime Wednesday so we could do system checks late Wednesday, and open them Thursday," said Joseph Garcia, of Miami-Dade County Public Schools. "Our plan right now is Thursday."

The school system has also set up a crisis hot line for parents and students to call.

"Parents are very concerned about their children being at home, their safety, how they can continue academically to do some things to keep them occupied," said Debbie Montilla, of Student Services.

The crisis hot line number is (305) 995-1600. If you just want information regarding schools, the number is (305) 995-3000.

Crew is pulling for FCAT exams to be delayed, after students lost more than a week of classes because of Hurricane Wilma.

"I think we ought to delay it for at least a week. We've lost a lot of instructional time, and even if we're able to make some of that up, it's been very discontinuous. So, we really want to give kids an education. Government makes the kind of changes and we're nimble of foot when it comes to being able to serve kids," Crew said.

"The first five days have to be made up. After that, it would be split, in some formula -- 50-50 probably -- of the number of days lost. Most superintendents that I've talked to are anxious to get learning time extended, and then we would also look at extending the FCAT for a week, maybe for a longer period, as we did last year, as well," Bush said.