Emergencies

Our Emergency Procedure Manual outlines our responses to various emergencies including earthquakes, fires, power outage, loss of water, serious accident or illness among staff or children, severe winter storms, school intruder/strangers/volatile encounters, and hazardous waste accidents or chemical emergency.  The plan, which staff reviews annually, is posted with the resource documents for current families in Family Portal.

Emergency Closure Guidelines

Occasionally, we must close school due to snow and driving conditions, or water, power or heat outages. During the school day,  we will only decide to close when it would risk the health and safety of children to stay open. On those rare occasions, we will contact parents to pick up their child. If we cannot reach parents we will try their emergency contacts. Secondary students may contact their own parents. Staff will always stay at school until the last parents leave.

How we notify you of emergency schedule changes

When weather—a snow day, a windstorm—or a power outage or other emergency—causes a schedule change for WMS, we will make every effort to contact you as soon as we have decided on whether or not to hold school, call for a late start or close early. Please be aware that you may receive multiple notifications: a direct text message and a phone call. WMS does not send notifications should the school be fully operating on a normal schedule.

• ParentAlert: WMS will text message and call you via ParentAlert if we decide to close school, start late or dismiss early.
• We will post any closures or schedule changes on the WMS website as an alert pop-up and on WMS social media accounts.
• FlashAlert Newswire: this service submits concise announcements from schools to local broadcasters. Here are some common messages for Woodinville Montessori School that may appear in TV crawl lines and FlashAlert notifications:
  • Closed—means no classes, no child care (Club House), no after-school elective classes and all meetings are canceled.
  • Late Start—means ALL classes start late, including Secondary and AM half-day preschool/Kindergarten classes. There is NO before-school care (Club House) when there is a late start. Class start times will be announced in the ParentAlert message to families. Carlines begin 15 minutes before class start times.
  • All afternoon/evening activities canceled—means ALL students must be picked up at dismissal time; NO after-school care (Club House), no after-school electives or clubs, no after-school or evening meetings.
• ParentAlert messages sent to your phones from WMS may include additional information to that above.

Due to our microclimates, conditions may vary dramatically from one neighborhood or area to another. You should always use your own judgment about whether or not to come to school when road conditions in your own area are bad.

Should school be closed for any reason, WMS reserves the right to reschedule make-up days as needed, or not. Those days may be scheduled during the school year or may extend it. Any pre-paid child care fees will be applied to the make-up days. No refunds are given because of emergency closures.