School Districts
ABC Unified
Anywhere County, CA
Vasquez High
Acton-Agua Dulce Unified District
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
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
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
3
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
1
Total Closure Days
2
Total Closure Days
0
Total Closure Days
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
1
Schools Impacted
0
Schools Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
359
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
616
Students Impacted
614
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
562
Students Impacted
588
Students Impacted
0
Students Impacted
0
Overall Closures
| Reason | Category | Total Closure Days | Schools Impacted | Average Closure Days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 6 | 1 | 6 |
| 2007 Southern California Fires | Wildfires | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Other Safety Risks | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 Southern California Fires | Wildfires | 2007-08 | 1 | 614 | Buckweed Fire, in Acton, Agua Dulce and Santa Clarita |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2004-05 | 2 | 588 | Inclement weather (heavy rain) and road closures causing unsafe driving conditions for busing, as well as communities that were trapped due to road closures. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2008-09 | 3 | 616 | Inclement weather (snow) and road closures caused unsafe road conditions. |
| Inclement Weather | Natural Disasters & Weather | 2016-17 | 1 | 359 | School closure, severe weither conditions, snow. |
| Other Safety Risks | Student Safety | 2005-06 | 1 | 562 | School was vandalized and all locks were glued shut unable to open school for the day. |
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.