School Districts
ABC Unified
Anywhere County, CA
Riviera Elementary
Kelseyville Unified District
Total Closure Days
5
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
5
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
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
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Students Impacted
233
Students Impacted
249
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
263
Students Impacted
273
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
279
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
294
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
318
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
272
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 | 6 | 1 | 6 |
| Camp Fire 2018 | Wildfires | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| Valley Fire 2015 | Wildfires | 5 | 1 | 5 |
| 2017 Wine Country Fires | Wildfires | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 1 | 1 | 1 |
Wildfire Closures
Natural Disasters & Weather 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Camp Fire 2018 | Wildfires | 2018-19 | 5 | 233 | 2018 Wildfires - Camp Fire - Air Quality |
| 2017 Wine Country Fires | Wildfires | 2017-18 | 3 | 249 | Lake County Fire-State of Emergency |
| Pineapple Express | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2014-15 | 1 | 273 | Pineapple Express - Winter Storm |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2002-03 | 1 | 272 | Severe weather causing power outages, flooding, and downed trees which blocked the roadway. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2010-11 | 3 | 279 | Snow day-inclement weather, unsafe roads and power outages. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2005-06 | 1 | 318 | Unexpected snowfall. Several bus routes were unable to run due to snow an dice on roads. |
| Valley Fire 2015 | Wildfires | 2015-16 | 5 | 263 | Valley Fire |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2007-08 | 1 | 294 | heavy snow and impassable roads |
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.