Over the last two weeks, Lake Washington School District (LWSD) experienced unprecedented weather conditions that caused school delays, early releases, and closures. We want to assure you that our district Facilities and on-site custodial staff have worked tirelessly to get our school sites to a place where we will be able to open school on Tuesday, February 19. It should be noted that the district owns two snow plows and we were also required to contract snow plow services to meet our target of opening school on Tuesday. We cannot thank our Facilities and custodial staff enough for the time and energy spent to prepare our schools for students and staff.

Another group of staff that deserves a huge thank you is our transportation staff. Our bus drivers operated their vehicles with high skill and great attention to student safety. Driving a bus is challenging work but driving a bus full of children in snowy conditions is even more stressful. Thank you to all of our bus drivers and transportation staff for their efforts under challenging weather conditions.

Many neighborhood sidewalks are still impacted with significant amounts of snow. We encourage all families to take note of the conditions around their house to make sure children know the best walk route or place to wait for bus pick up. If you choose to drive your children to school, please give yourself extra time to get to and from school as parent drop off areas and parking may be impacted due to snow plow piles.

We recognize that these recent school closures create schedule changes that are challenging for students, staff and families, and we appreciate your patience. The district will develop a plan to make up for the loss of instructional time. We will communicate with families as soon as we have further information.

Again, we look forward to seeing students on Tuesday, February 19 as we resume school. Thank you for your help as we continue to manage the impact of the major weather events from the last two weeks.