Valley schools will be closed Friday, Jan. 9 as the Snoqualmie Valley School District assesses damages from this week’s floods.
“Usually we don’t call it this early, but we need to make sure our buildings are safe, and there’s no contaminated water in parking lots,” school district spokeswoman Carolyn Malcolm said Thursday afternoon.
Malcolm expected that schools would be open on Monday, Jan. 12, but couldn’t say for sure until the damage assessment was complete. An official report of the buildings was slated to be available Friday afternoon.
District employees were rowing out Thursday to affected campuses including Mount Si High School, where flooding knocked out the district’s emergency communications generator and causing the district’s Web site to crash. Malcolm said repair crews were fixing the generator, and expected it to be back online late Thursday afternoon.
The budget work study session and regular school board meeting scheduled for Thursday evening were postponed until a date that is yet to be determined, Malcolm said.
Lawmaker roundtable
A legislative roundtable scheduled for Friday morning at the district headquarters in downtown Snoqualmie has been moved to Chief Kanim Middle School’s commons area. It will take place from 10 a.m. to noon. District 5 state representatives Glenn Anderson and Jay Rodne, and Sen. Cheryl Pflug were set to join District 45 representatives Roger Goodman and Larry Springer and Sen. Eric Oemig at a forum organized by the district’s Parent Teacher Student Association. The public is encouraged to attend.
Stay informed
Malcolm said there are four resources people can use to learn about the status of schools during emergencies. One is the district Web site, www.svsd410.org. Another is the district’s emergency hotline, (425) 831-8494, which can handle about 20 calls at a time. Television and radio stations also report on closures. The Web site www.schoolreport.org gives information about school closures and late starts statewide. Malcolm said that individuals can subscribe to a list through schoolreport.org to receive e-mails about school emergencies.
Make-up days
By Friday, Snoqualmie Valley students will have missed eight days of school for the academic year due to bad weather and floods.
Before the most recent flood event, the last day of school was set for June 24.
Malcolm said the district hasn’t yet decided how days missed this week will affect the last day of school.
Typically, the state requires districts to have school in session for 180 days each year, and offer a minimum number of instruction hours.
However, when students missed nine days because of bad weather two years ago, the state offered districts some flexibility, allowing them to extend instruction hours on Friday afternoons in lieu of adding some extra days.
“Given how widespread the weather has been, we’re waiting to see what the state will do,” Malcolm said.
The district must also take into account contract obligations with employees.
