COVID-19 Update: All Seattle Public Schools to be closed starting March 12th, 2020

What a busy news day! With so much chang­ing so fast, It’s already once again time for a anoth­er install­ment of of our spe­cial series COVID-19 Update, bring­ing you the lat­est devel­op­ments on the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break that pub­lic health author­i­ties in the Pacif­ic North­west are work­ing dili­gent­ly to mitigate.

Unlike some of the non­sense that is unfor­tu­nate­ly cir­cu­lat­ing on social media, all the infor­ma­tion you’ll find here is accu­rate and based on sound science.

A very short time ago, Seat­tle Pub­lic Schools announced it’s clos­ing down for two weeks in an effort to com­bat the nov­el coro­n­avirus. Said the district:

Dear Fam­i­lies:

Togeth­er, we are fac­ing an unprece­dent­ed health cri­sis in our com­mu­ni­ty. In our response to COVID-19, we must depend on the wis­dom of our health experts and elect­ed offi­cials and lean on the resolve of our strong community.

We have been fol­low­ing the guid­ance of Pub­lic Health Seat­tle and King Coun­ty and imple­ment­ing pre­ven­tive and respon­sive strate­gies, but in light of Gov­er­nor Inslee’s request that all cit­i­zens prac­tice mea­sures to slow the spread of COVID-19, it is now time for the dis­trict to act swiftly.

Start­ing Thurs­day, March 12th, Super­in­ten­dent Denise Juneau and the Seat­tle School Board will close Seat­tle Pub­lic Schools for a min­i­mum of 14 days as the Cen­ter for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion (CDC) cur­rent­ly guides. This nec­es­sary action is an effec­tive way to dis­rupt wide­spread infection.

Begin­ning Thurs­day, March 12, all school build­ing activ­i­ties includ­ing school day instruc­tion, child­care, health ser­vices, enrich­ment, etc. are can­celed until fur­ther notice. Wednes­day, March 11th, child­care and extend­ed day sup­ports will con­tin­ue as planned. We have an emer­gency food plan which will be put into place on Mon­day, March 16th. More infor­ma­tion will be pro­vid­ed by Fri­day, March 13th.

The deci­sion to close the dis­trict was extreme­ly dif­fi­cult. We know that clos­ing our schools will impact our most vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies and we rec­og­nize that work­ing fam­i­lies depend on the con­sis­ten­cy and pre­dictabil­i­ty of sup­ports and ser­vices our schools offer. We are work­ing with part­ners and the city to deter­mine how to best mit­i­gate the impact clos­ing schools will have on work­ing families.

We also rec­og­nize there are still a lot of unknowns about this dis­ease and just how preva­lent it is in our community.

Yes­ter­day, we had our first staff mem­ber con­firmed with COVID-19. As test­ing becomes more read­i­ly avail­able, these cas­es will increase. While chil­dren appear to be more pro­tect­ed from extreme symp­toms, adults, includ­ing our edu­ca­tors and employ­ees, need sup­port and pro­tec­tion as well.

As we have shared many times, our goal has been to keep our doors open as long as pos­si­ble in order to sup­port our stu­dents and the entire com­mu­ni­ty. Our incred­i­ble school staff, school lead­ers, and cen­tral sup­port staff have been unwa­ver­ing in this com­mit­ment. We appre­ci­ate their ser­vice to our com­mu­ni­ty, chil­dren, and families.

It is in times like these that our com­mu­ni­ty val­ues become vis­i­ble. Please take care of each other.

Reach out to neigh­bors and lend a hand to those in need. We will get through this, but it will take all of us think­ing cre­ative­ly and con­tin­u­ing to sup­port our community’s children.

The super­in­ten­dent will con­tin­ue to stay in con­ver­sa­tion with the city, state, and local offi­cials, and part­ners as our entire region responds to new guid­ance and a call to take an active role com­bat­ing COVID-19. More infor­ma­tion will be com­mu­ni­cat­ed Thurs­day, March 12th, to all fam­i­lies. Please check the Coro­n­avirus 2019 Update web­page for new information.

Northshore, in the Both­ell-Wood­inville area, has already closed its schools for sev­er­al weeks and more dis­tricts could be about to fol­low suit.

Lake Wash­ing­ton, the state’s sec­ond largest, has stayed open, but a peti­tion with over 60,000 sig­na­tures is call­ing for LWSD to close its facil­i­ties and switch to a remote learn­ing set­up like Northshore has done.

UPDATE: Lake Wash­ing­ton now says it’s clos­ing its schools start­ing tomorrow.

The Lake Wash­ing­ton School Dis­trict has been fol­low­ing guid­ance from Pub­lic Health in an effort to stay open as long as possible.

In light of the cur­rent infor­ma­tion shared today by our elect­ed offi­cials, we believe it is time to plan for alter­na­tive ways to serve our com­mu­ni­ty and families.

In col­lab­o­ra­tion with our School Board of Direc­tors and our Lake Wash­ing­ton Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, we have made the deci­sion to close all schools from March 12th through March 27th, and re-eval­u­ate any fur­ther clo­sures dur­ing that time.

We know that many peo­ple rely on our school dis­trict for their abil­i­ty to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing ser­vices to our com­mu­ni­ty through their employ­ers. We play an impor­tant role in the abil­i­ty of many orga­ni­za­tions to con­tin­ue run­ning for the health and safe­ty of our com­mu­ni­ty. This is not an easy deci­sion, and our plans mov­ing for­ward require addi­tion­al plan­ning and preparation.

On Thurs­day and Fri­day, we will be plan­ning for an alter­na­tive mod­el with the fol­low­ing services:

• Avail­able child­care dur­ing school hours for fam­i­lies who are not able to remain home or serve in crit­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty roles such as health­care and first responders.
• Avail­able meals for chil­dren pro­vid­ed at school sites – details to follow.
• Avail­able edu­ca­tion­al resources with sup­ports for at-home learning.

We rec­og­nize this clo­sure cre­ates many dif­fer­ent chal­lenges, and our goal is to pro­vide basic ser­vices to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing our fam­i­lies and our communities.

We will con­tin­ue to pro­vide updat­ed infor­ma­tion over the next two days, and we would ask for your patience in sub­mit­ting any ques­tions or con­cerns to allow our staff to focus on their work and plan­ning for the next two weeks.

We strong­ly urge fam­i­lies to fol­low the updat­ed guid­ance from King Coun­ty Pub­lic Health for social dis­tanc­ing and oth­er pre­cau­tions in an effort to slow the spread of this virus.

Thank you for your ongo­ing part­ner­ship as we work togeth­er to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing vital ser­vices while also tak­ing new precautions.

Dr. Jane Stavem, Superintendent
Lake Wash­ing­ton School District

We will post a link to a com­plete list of school clos­ings in a sub­se­quent update.