Closing school or changing the school schedule is not a decision that we take lightly. We understand the disruption it can cause a family, such as altering a work schedule or causing parents/guardians to make last-minute arrangements for childcare. It is important to remember that we are responsible for the safety of more than 9,600 students, families and commuting staff. All of them need to be able to travel to school and home again as safely as possible. A number of factors help school district officials determine if school will be canceled on a given day, whether the school buses will run late or on limited transportation routes or whether school will be held at the normal time.
Road conditions
The biggest factor is the condition of the roads that will be used by the school buses. Our district is one of the largest geographically in Snohomish County. It covers 128 square miles. Our buses travel about 4,000 miles each day getting our students to and from school. It’s also important to remember that although main thoroughfares, such as Highway 9, Cathcart Way and Broadway Avenue may be drivable, many of our rural areas and neighborhood roads are not. Experienced staff members in our transportation, maintenance and custodial departments will check the road conditions beginning at about 2-3 a.m., paying very close attention to known problem areas, such as hilly or shaded areas where ice and snow have caused poor road conditions in the past. Those experts then get together, share notes and make a recommendation to the superintendent about whether the roads are safe enough for school buses that morning. That decision needs to be made at about 4:45 a.m. because school buses start rolling at about 5:45 a.m. in order to make their morning high school and middle school runs. In addition, many teachers and staff leave for work in the early morning hours. Some of our high school students also take zero-hour classes prior to the start of the regular school day.
Weather forecast
Those of us living in the Puget Sound Convergence Zone know the difficulty of predicting with certainty if snow will fall, when it will fall and how much will fall. It's also particularly difficult to determine what to do about school when a snowstorm hits the area in the morning. Sometimes the road conditions are fine at about 4 a.m., but become dangerous by 7 a.m. At other times, the reverse might happen. In the end, however, we must depend heavily on the forecasts provided to us by the National Weather Service.
Neighboring school districts
As we determine what to do about school on a given morning, we consult with our counterparts in the Monroe, Everett, Lake Stevens, Mukilteo and Northshore school districts, and they consult with us. Unless there is a weather pattern at work that makes the conditions in one part of Snohomish County different from those in another, you’ll usually see many of our school districts making a similar decision.
Staff and student drivers
If road conditions are so treacherous that students, families and staff members, such as those living in outlying areas, are not able to get to school, then that weighs heavily on the decision of whether to hold school. In addition, our custodians, kitchen staff, bus drivers and others often start their work day in the early morning hours.
