School Districts
ABC Unified
Anywhere County, CA
Hayfork Elementary
Mountain Valley Unified District
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
173
Students Impacted
193
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
196
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
209
Students Impacted
213
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
239
Students Impacted
249
Students Impacted
241
Students Impacted
245
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 | 8 | 1 | 8 |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Threat of Violence | Student Safety | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Natural Disasters & Weather Closures
Student Safety Closures
Infrastructure 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 | 2007-08 | 1 | 239 | An overnight/early morning snowstorm on top of already existing snow levels left the roads unsafe for the school buses to run in the Hayfork and Hyampom valleys. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 193 | Impassable roads due to inclimate weather. |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2014-15 | 1 | 196 | Pineapple Express - Winter Storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2012-13 | 1 | 209 | Severe storm, snow, unsafe roads, power outage |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2007-08 | 1 | 239 | Snow and high winds closed roads |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2005-06 | 1 | 241 | Snow storm caused unsafe roads. |
| Threat of Violence | Student Safety | 2012-13 | 1 | 209 | Threat to shoot up school |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2011-12 | 1 | 213 | Tree fell on a power line |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2006-07 | 1 | 249 | heavy snow - impassable roads |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2017-18 | 1 | 173 | snow storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2004-05 | 1 | 245 | transformer from PG&E that feeds Trinity COE blew in winter 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.