School Districts
ABC Unified
Anywhere County, CA
Boulder Creek Elementary
San Lorenzo Valley Unified District
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
4
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
5
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
513
Students Impacted
526
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
531
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
472
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
463
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
541
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
399
Overall Closures
Reason | Category | Total Closure Days | Schools Impacted | Average Closure Days |
|---|
Reason | Category | Total Closure Days | Schools Impacted | Average Closure Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| 2011 California Windstorm | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Other Wildfires | Wildfires | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Police Activity | Student Safety | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Wildfire Closures
Natural Disasters & Weather Closures
Student Safety Closures
Reported Incidents
Nature of Emergency descriptions are included as they were detailed in records from the California Department of Education and may contain grammatical errors and inconsistencies.
Reason | Category | School Year | Total Closure Days | Enrollment | Description |
|---|
Reason | Category | School Year | Total Closure Days | Enrollment | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other Wildfires | Wildfires | 2017-18 | 1 | 513 | Boulder Creek Elementary was used as an evacuation area due to the Bear Fire |
| Police Activity | Student Safety | 2009-10 | 1 | 463 | Dead body found on the landing of the classroom building. School closed by Sheriff's Office. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 526 | Inclement weather resulted in flooding, power outages, and road closures. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 3 | 526 | Inclement weather resulted in flooding, road closures, and power outages. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2005-06 | 1 | 541 | Inclement weather, power outages, and impassable roads. |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2014-15 | 1 | 531 | Pineapple Express - Winter Storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2009-10 | 2 | 463 | Power outages due to storms, closed roads and hazardous conditions. |
| 2011 California Windstorm | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2011-12 | 2 | 472 | Severe Winds-State of Emergency |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2009-10 | 2 | 463 | Storm conditions resulted in power outages, flooding, closed roads, and hazardous conditions. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2002-03 | 1 | 399 | Storm day - power outage, trees downed, flood warnings. |
Methodology and Data
In California, school districts that close schools for emergencies can request that the California Department of Education protect their attendance-based funding. Such requests, known as Form J-13A waivers, must list the closed schools, dates, number of lost days and reasons for the emergency. Using the California Public Records Act, CalMatters compiled the 17 years of these requests on file with the department to build a school-site level database of reported school closures.
Closure days were defined as one lost day of instruction at a single public school site. School that did not report any closures or where enrollment could not be verified were omitted.
School districts self-report their closure information to state education authorities, who hand-enter it into a database for internal use. For this reason, it may contain errors and inconsistencies. Because the state does not specify a deadline for requesting J-13A waivers, some districts submitted multiple school closure incidents on a single request, or submitted multiple requests for a single incident. In these cases, CalMatters manually cleaned and sorted the data.
If you have any questions about the database, discover any errors or have interest in downloading the data, please email ricardo@calmatters.org. Read more about our data in our full methodology.