School Districts
ABC Unified
Anywhere County, CA
Lassen County Special Education
Lassen County Office of Education District
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
5
Total Closure Days
4
Total Closure Days
6
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
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
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Students Impacted
15
Students Impacted
6
Students Impacted
12
Students Impacted
21
Students Impacted
18
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
24
Students Impacted
25
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
42
Students Impacted
88
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Overall Closures
| Reason | Category | Total Closure Days | Schools Impacted | Average Closure Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 9 | 1 | 9 |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 8 | 1 | 8 |
| Outbreak & Quarantine | Student Safety | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Other Reasons | Other | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Facilities Issues | Infrastructure | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Other Wildfires | Wildfires | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other Wildfires | Wildfires | 2008-09 | 1 | 88 | Due to wildlife, power was lost for an entire day in the Big Valley and Fall River Valley area communities. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 12 | Inclement weather resulted in flooding and road closures that forced the special education program at Big Valley Joint Unified School District to be cancelled. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 12 | Inclement weather resulted in power outage at Janesville, Johnstonville, Shaffer Elementary, and Westwood Unified school districts. |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2014-15 | 1 | 18 | Lassen County Special Education in Big Valley Joint Unified School District: December 11, 2014 - Pineapple Express winter storm |
| Other Reasons | Other | 2014-15 | 1 | 18 | Lassen County Special Education in Big Valley Joint Unified School District: December 5, 2014 - Death of staff member caused more teachers to request bereavement leave than the availability of subs. |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2014-15 | 2 | 18 | Power Outage at Westwood Unified School District. |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2016-17 | 1 | 12 | Power failure caused the closure of Lassen County Special Education in the Janesville Union Elementary School District. |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2011-12 | 1 | 25 | Power outage at the Big Valley USD site |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2015-16 | 1 | 21 | Power outage closed special education programs in the Big Valley Joint Unified School District. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 2 | 12 | Power outage due to inclement weather resulted in closures of special education at Big Valley Joint, Fort Sage, Janesville, Johnstonville, Lassen Union High, Long Valley Charter, Ravendale-Termo, Richmond, Susanville, and Westwood Union school districts. |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2015-16 | 1 | 21 | Sepcial Education classes canceld due to power outage at Big Valley Joint Unified School District. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2012-13 | 1 | 24 | Snow accumulations up to three feet in areas of Big Valley Joint Unified School District. Buses were unable to pick up students. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2018-19 | 1 | 15 | Storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2015-16 | 1 | 21 | Storm cause icy roads and bus transportation was canceled for Fort Sage Unified School District Special Education program. |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2015-16 | 1 | 21 | System-wide power outage at Lassen Union High School District resulted in cancelled Special Education program for the day. |
| Facilities Issues | Infrastructure | 2009-10 | 1 | 42 | Temperatures dropped to -20 and the heaters were not working. |
| Outbreak & Quarantine | Student Safety | 2017-18 | 2 | 6 | Viral Meningitis outbreak- Special Ed program at Lassen High School |
| Power Outage | Infrastructure | 2009-10 | 1 | 42 | Widespread power outage. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2014-15 | 1 | 18 | Wind and rain storm caused power outage at Janesville Elementary School District. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2014-15 | 1 | 18 | wind/rain storm caused damage to school site and power outage in Fort Sage Unified School District. |
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.