November 3, 2023
Dear Enumclaw School District Families,
Winter Weather
The 2023-2024 school year is off to a wonderful start and has been full of celebrations and incredible learning. As the weather begins to change, we may need to implement our traditional “snow day” and delays when weather conditions make it unsafe to operate on our normal school schedules. It is always our goal NOT to extend the school year further into the summer months with “snow days,” however, student and staff safety is our top priority. The information below will explain how we plan to make decisions to delay or cancel school days and how you can access and receive notifications about this information.
Around 3:30 AM on weather-impacted days, Transportation Supervisor Everett Cunningham, Director of Facilities, Athletics and Operations Phil Engebretsen, Director of Business Kyle Fletcher, and I will be out assessing road conditions. We will each drive a different part of our school district.
We gather together with information from our traveled routes and then determine what our transportation options will allow as far as a school day is concerned. Of the many factors that are considered, we evaluate road conditions for buses and staff/student drivers, amount of snow or ice, outside temperatures, weather forecast, and changing weather conditions. It is not uncommon to have delays in the early winter with little snow if the temperature is below freezing and not expected to rise much above freezing during the day. We find that road conditions for our buses are quite treacherous in these icy conditions. In late winter, the converse could be true. We could have several inches of wet snow, but the temperature is above freezing, making roads passable. We make the very best decision each time we are faced with winter weather conditions.
The key factor when deciding on whether we can have school on a regular schedule or a late start is if our buses can travel our emergency routes. Often this is just what we need to do in order to operate school. There are times we need to extend the emergency routes in a few locations. When this occurs, our drivers call families. Again, I am especially grateful to these families for their partnership and flexibility.
Our goal for determining school delay or closure status is typically no later than 5:30 AM.
http://flashalert.net: You can go to this website and sign up to have any school delay or closure alert come to your email address. You will receive this information as soon as I officially push the button on my computer!
We will place the delay or closure announcement on our district website at www.enumclaw.wednet.edu and our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/enumclawschooldistrict. If our district is running emergency bus routes, you can find this information on our website and Facebook as well.
Each family will receive a phone call and text via Thrillshare around 5:30/6:00 AM if a decision has been reached regarding a delay or school closure. As mentioned earlier, sometimes the weather conditions shift after 6:00 AM, and therefore a decision will be made at the earliest time possible.
Radio and television stations will receive our information as soon as I push the button on my computer. They are tracking many school districts and a few times have reported information different from what we have decided. Please use one of the above sources if you receive contradictory information.
Dr. Shaun V. Carey
Superintendent
