School Districts
ABC Unified
Anywhere County, CA
Frazier Mountain High
El Tejon Unified District
Total Closure Days
7
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Students Impacted
263
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
285
Students Impacted
286
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
294
Students Impacted
363
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
462
Students Impacted
462
Students Impacted
498
Students Impacted
511
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
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 | 19 | 1 | 19 |
| Other Reasons | Other | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Day Fire 2006 | Wildfires | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Fires & Explosions | Student Safety | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Wildfire Closures
Natural Disasters & Weather Closures
Student Safety Closures
Infrastructure Closures
Other 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 285 | Closure due to severe storm, mudslides, snow and road closures. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 285 | Closure due to storm and icy dangerous roads. |
| Other Reasons | Other | 2007-08 | 3 | 498 | Closure of Interstate 5, preventing more than 30 percent of district staff from reaching the school sites. |
| Day Fire 2006 | Wildfires | 2006-07 | 3 | 511 | Day Fire - evacuations of parent and students |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2015-16 | 1 | 286 | Heavy rain caused mudslides tha closed both the north and south-bound lanes of I-5. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2009-10 | 3 | 462 | Impassable roads caused by inclement weather |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2008-09 | 2 | 462 | Inclement weather, including snow and icy local roads that were impassable. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2012-13 | 1 | 294 | January 10, 2013 inclement weather - all schools |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2012-13 | 1 | 294 | March 8, 2013 Inclement weather - all schools |
| Fires & Explosions | Student Safety | 2012-13 | 1 | 294 | May 16, 2013 Fire - Frazier Mountain High Only |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2011-12 | 1 | 363 | Power outage/No well water |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2018-19 | 3 | 263 | Severe storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2015-16 | 2 | 286 | Snow closed roads |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2018-19 | 2 | 263 | Snow storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2018-19 | 2 | 263 | Snow storm |
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.