Inclement Weather and Potential Closure Reminders

Winter is approaching and may bring more unpredictable weather to our community. BSD encourages families to take the time to revisit the district’s emergency closure schedule protocols and our emergency closure decision-making process. While some decisions are made for the whole district, conditions may vary across different communities, which may result in different decisions for some schools. We encourage families to make personal decisions based on their specific circumstances. 

Receive Emergency Communications 

During instances of inclement weather or severe conditions that could result in a delayed or canceled school day, BSD will communicate any schedule changes to families through direct messages, including: phone calls, emails, text messages, on school and district websites, through social media, on FlashAlert, and in local news media. 

Tips for Receiving District Messages
Contact information - Complete online student data verification every school year to ensure your contact information is accurate. If you have already completed your data verification this year, no further action is needed. If you have not yet completed the process, you may make changes now to update your record. If you need support accessing data verification, please reach out to your school’s office manager (elementary) or registrar (middle and high).
SchoolMessenger: Set up an account (online or via the app) to view previous messages and manage your notification preferences. Use the same email address used for online student verification in ParentVUE.
Phone calls: Save the phone number 425-456-4072 in your contacts to ensure that calls show up as “Bellevue School District.” There have been some reports of users who have received the calls as “Potential Spam.”
Text messages: To receive SMS texts from SchoolMessenger, send a text message of “Y” or “Yes” to BSD’s short code number, 67587. You will then receive confirmation that you have registered for SchoolMessenger notifications.
Emails: Check your Junk/Spam folder. Depending on your email provider, you may need to mark email from the Bellevue School District as “safe,” or “move to inbox” to ensure future messages will not go to hidden folders.

Transportation 

Severe weather conditions can impact schools and transportation. Heavy rain or snow, road closures and detours, etc. can cause delays and disruption to bus routes. Families that would like to receive immediate notification of route delays or closures should sign up for the Edulog Parent Portal, the district’s transportation information platform. 

Snow Routes 

Families with students who ride buses should also be aware that there are also districtwide snow routes. The City of Bellevue plows streets and roads accordingly, and for the safety of our students and buses, all bus routes will stay on major streets that follow the city’s plow schedule. Please visit the district’s Snow Routes webpage to learn how and when bus stops may be moved to accommodate for inclement weather. 

Childcare 

As partner programs of BSD, both Right at School and Boys & Girls Clubs of Bellevue will communicate directly with participating families on operations, plans, etc. In most instances, community partner programming will follow district precedent for emergency closures (I.e., if schools are closed, they will also be closed). Please reach out directly to your student’s program for specific questions and to confirm the daily schedule.   

Power Outages 

Various weather events can cause power outages in our region. District leadership and operations teams work directly with Puget Sound Energy to assess the next steps in the event of an outage. Depending on when the outage occurs, its severity and estimated restoration time, there may or may not be impacts to the school day — such as a cancellation, delayed start, or early release. If students are already at or on their way to school when an outage occurs, the district will ensure that they have supervision through the end of the school day and transportation for those who need it.