School Districts in East Contra Costa County announced Monday evening that they will be operating on a “rainy day” schedule on Tuesday and will continue to monitor air quality.
School Districts in Antioch, Brentwood, Oakley and Pittsburg made the announcements over the past two hours that school will be open, but all activities will be indoors.
A Spare the Air Alert was issued through Friday due to air being unhealthy in the San Francisco Bay Area due to the Camp Fire in Butte County which has burned 113,000 acres and is just 25% contained
Here is the message from Antioch Unified School District
Good afternoon AUSD families. We continue to monitor the air quality to determine how best to proceed tomorrow when school is back in session. Today, air quality is registering as extremely unhealthy. However, it is forecast to be healthier tomorrow. As a result, we plan to resume school but will be practicing a “rainy day” schedule. This means no activities outside until further notice. Thank you, as always, for your continued patience and support as we navigate these continuously changing circumstances. Please continue to check back for any further updates. Due to ever-changing conditions, we plan to have a final update by 6:00 am tomorrow morning.
Here is a message from the Brentwood Union School District:
We have posted this previously when air quality has been an issue in our area and thought it might be helpful to post again in light of current conditions.
The Brentwood Union School District continues to use the “Air Quality and Outdoor Activity Guidance for Schools” document co-authored by the EPA, CDC and Department of Health and Human Services. Daily Air Quality is monitored by the district office utilizing airnow.gov and “Spare the Air” alerts are shared with sites. The sites follow the guidance in the attached documents. We are being told to expect air quality to be in the orange and red range all week. As the week continues, please be patient with your schools as sports and other outside events may be postponed or canceled. We certainly don’t want to disappoint students by canceling events, but we will err on the side of safety.
Here is the message from the Oakley Union Elementary School District via Greg Hetrick
OUESD will be on a Rainy Day Schedule tomorrow, Tuesday, November 13th. All outside activity will be kept to a minimum. If you have any questions please contact your child’s school. Our thoughts remain with those families that are affected by this first hand.
Here is the message from the Pittsburg Unified School District.
Hello PUSD Community,
Our thoughts are with our fellow Californians who are experiencing incredible losses due to the tragic fires in Butte County and Southern California and the fire fighters who continue the battle. The fires continue to impact our air quality and we can expect to feel the effects throughout the week.
Here are some things we are doing as a district to make sure we are able to have a safe environment for our students and staff:
We will be running a “rainy day” schedule, meaning all activities will be indoors. Recess, lunch, PE will all be held inside. After school sports practices and programs have been limited to only inside activities. We are planning on having this schedule throughout the week.
Our HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning) Units in our schools have been programmed so they are not taking in outside air. They will recirculate the filtered air. We did this early today in order to prepare for tomorrow.
We will continue to monitor the air and put out a daily message with any adjustments to the schedule. These websites have information on air quality and what you can do at home:
https://cchealth.org/wildfire/
http://www.sparetheair.org/
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Best,
Janet
Janet Schulze, Ed.D
Superintendent, Pittsburg Unified School District
