West Seattle schools: Wednesday changes/closures

Note – we are starting a NEW school-closure story for Thursday, since this one has a long list of comments from Tuesday/Wednesday. Find that new one here.

UPDATED 8:44 AM WEDNESDAY:

ANNOUNCED FOR WEDNESDAY 1/18/12:
Seattle Public Schools closed Wed.
Explorer West Middle School closed Wed.
Westside School closed Wed.
Holy Family School closed Wed.
Hope Lutheran School closed Wed.
Vashon Public Schools closed Wed.
Highline Public Schools closed Wed.
Seattle Lutheran High School closed Wed.
Our Lady of Guadalupe closed Wed.
Holy Rosary School closed Wed.
West Seattle Montessori/West Seattle Academy closed Wed.
Community School of West Seattle closed Wed.
A Child Becomes Preschool closed Wed.
Bright Horizons-West Seattle closed Wed.
Kennedy High School (Burien) closed Wed.
South Seattle Community College closed Wed.
University of Washington-Seattle closed Wed.
Seattle University closed Wed.

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Zoey January 16, 2012 (7:31 pm)

Vashon School District also two hours late (for those commuter families) and they said keep checking for possible cancelations.

MB January 16, 2012 (7:36 pm)

Does this include Community colleges?

WSB January 16, 2012 (7:40 pm)

The Seattle community college system does not appear to have made its call yet. We are watching SSCC’s online alerts as well as SchoolReport.org, which I believe will list those notices.
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Zoey, thank you, knowing that many West Seattleites go there, I had just checked on that and added it to this story – TR

MB January 16, 2012 (7:42 pm)

Ok will just keep checking back then! Thank you =D

Lisa January 16, 2012 (7:47 pm)

So the buses are on snow routes does that mean the #21 will be traveling the loop in AH and down 35th or is it just s shuttle?

Neighborly January 16, 2012 (7:55 pm)

I think she means school buses.

Argiles January 16, 2012 (8:09 pm)

So we give plenty of time to get the kids there and then they are gonna rush and panic when the snow starts falling in the afternoon and they have thousands of kids to get home. Here I thought only the Midwest had no common sense on cancelling / 2 hour late starts. Plus the inconvenience it is for families who work.

Steph January 16, 2012 (8:21 pm)

I plan on just keeping the kids home since I have childcare for them tomorrow (I don’t have any for the rest of the week, and my childcare cannot shuttle them to and from school on the shortened schedule.) Just trying to be mellow and expect the unexpected. I have lots of wine to help me get through. :)

Argiles January 16, 2012 (8:24 pm)

I’ve done that as well in the past when I lived in IL Steph. Guess I’ll leave it as a decision for the hubby to make when he gets home tonight. Good luck with the rest of the week and keep the wine flowing :)

Nicholas January 16, 2012 (8:26 pm)

Does anyone know where to find the snow route map for SPS buses specifically? I can’t seem to find them on the district transportation sites.

Muttleys January 16, 2012 (9:03 pm)

Holy Names has announced that they are closed tomorrow

Lorelee January 16, 2012 (10:17 pm)

Anyone know if the water taxi shuttle has a snow route or if it runs at all I the snow? It’s not clear on the metro website.

Karlynn January 16, 2012 (10:51 pm)

I’ll be curious to see if there is even any snow on the ground in the morning to justify the late start. Somehow, at this point, it doesn’t look likely. I’m hoping that Hope Lutheran will just start on time, because I think all this late start jazz will be for naught.

Lura Ercolano January 16, 2012 (11:29 pm)

Well, sometimes late starts are appropriate to spread the commute times out a bit, make sure that staff can get to the schools before the kids, allow for the fact that many teachers live far outside the district, make sure the roads are plowed before the school buses go out, give the district time to chain up school buses, etc.
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But other times the late start is appropriate simply so that the school district can evaluate the forecast in the morning before deciding whether they want to risk having kids stranded at school, etc.

ls January 17, 2012 (6:29 am)

“make sure the roads are plowed before the school buses go out, give the district time to chain up school buses, etc”

Thank You Lura for recognizing there’s more to it!

and just so you know – at least in Seattle – District doesn’t chain up the buses, the drivers do. The drivers have to do a complete check of their buses EVERY morning and a “post-trip” check in the evening.

LD January 17, 2012 (6:45 am)

Holy Rosary is on normal schedule (per the website)

WSB January 17, 2012 (7:02 am)

Thanks, LD. Several other schools have made a point of saying “normal schedule” but I’ve found over the years that if you mix a list of closures and changes with “normals,” it can be confusing. Until you get to the point where the normals are the exception! – TR

greenelf January 17, 2012 (6:58 am)

Thank you, Lura and Is. Totally makes sense!
I am, however, just a little annoyed that I didn’t get my robo-call like WSB did. Since I work from a home office, I could have slept another 1/2 hr. Boo.

Gina January 17, 2012 (7:38 am)

Water Taxi weather issues from personal experience: Wind/snow combined with water over dock (high tide) means the Water Taxi won’t dock on the West Seattle side, and will turn around and go back to the downtown Seattle side. Be prepared to walk back to West Seattle if you use the Water Taxi while it snows.

Katie January 17, 2012 (8:08 am)

Our Lady of Guadalupe has a 10 A.M. start.

me January 17, 2012 (8:10 am)

OLG late start 10:00am

WSB January 17, 2012 (8:32 am)

Thank you – I had been checking their page http://www.guadalupe-school.org/classes/8th/8th/Snow_Notices.html till 7:15 and figured everybody had made their announcements by then. Guess not! Adding to list. – TR

DF January 17, 2012 (11:28 am)

Sorry to repeat this post from the main weather story, and this is going to sound absolutely crazy, but my wife just came from dropping off our daughter at elementary school (930a start normally, 2-hour delay this morning), and the school (part of Seattle Public Schools) advised her that they were cancelling for the day! Still haven’t gotten official word from SPS about this via robo-calls or anything else.

DF January 17, 2012 (11:32 am)

Here’s what it says at SchoolReport.org:
Schools Closed. Evening Activities Canceled. All schools will be on a 2 hour early release schedule
Effective from 01/17 11:19 AM to 01/18 04:00 PM
Last Modified: 01/17/2012 11:19 AM.

So this just happened 10 minutes ago. PERHAPS (i.e. my best guess given what just happened) the schools on the 3rd shift (starting/ending latest) are turning people away now that the decision has been made, but the other schools will be on 2-hour early release.

yumpears January 17, 2012 (11:52 am)

DF – which school was this?

DF January 17, 2012 (12:55 pm)

@yumpears: Thurgood Marshall Elementary School.

Zoey January 17, 2012 (9:06 pm)

Do you guys know anything about Vashon for tomorrow? Their website SAID it was two hours late…but they took it down?

WSB January 17, 2012 (9:21 pm)

Zoey – I checked schoolreport.org – with which Vashon works for getting the word out to the media – and it isn’t listed there yet. The two-hour info would have been from earlier today. – TR