BY JENNIFER GUY
Asst. Superintendent
Los Alamos Public Schools

Thank you for your patience this week. I hope that you are all doing OK with the uncertainty of the fire. We continue to meet with the fire management teams including the county and LANL every day. I wanted to give you a little more information about why the schools closed this week and what we hope happens next week. As you will recall, from the beginning of the fire, we have been watching and working with the county by being aware of when the fire reaches set points on the map that may create a need for action. These actions include following the Ready, Set Go plan. You will recall that in some of the first communications I sent we said that we would temporarily close schools if the fire reached Alamo Canyon. This was a set action point agreed upon with the county and fire management team. On Sunday, May 8, we were notified that the fire had entered Alamo Canyon. There were also high winds on Sunday. High winds were predicted for Monday – Wednesday this week as well. The team could not be sure what the fire behavior would be like and how fast it would move in the high winds, we were advised to close schools so that students were home if an evacuation was called. 

We have continued to meet and monitor the situation. I am relieved that the fire has not moved quickly and they have been successful at slowing it down. The team has good opportunity and many resources at work on the fire this week. I am optimistic that if the fire continues with the current behavior we will be able to return to school next Monday with confidence that we would not risk having to evacuate children from schools. We will continue to watch the situation this week and will make a decision about next week on Thursday or Friday so that you can plan ahead. Student safety is our top priority but we are committed to returning students to school as quickly as we safely can. We will work with individual families to address their needs if they choose to evacuate and need to be out longer. 

Your students can access learning activities to do independently this week through the Clever app or their google classroom. Teachers will not be teaching live classes but their are many activities and opportunities for independent work online. It is a great time for students to catch up on missed assignments or projects, work in Lexia or Reading Plus, practice math facts, and read a good book.

We know this is not what anyone wanted at the end of the year. Let’s all hope for the fire stays slow and in control so we can return to school next Monday. I will update you again on Thursday. Please let me know if you have any questions.