Hello Novato Community,
As we work with PG&E, our Novato community partners, and other Marin County Superintendents, we have learned that as much as 99% of Marin County is expected to be without power beginning at 4:00 PM today, October 26. The power shutoff will continue through the weekend. The earliest power will begin to come back online is an unknown time on Monday, October 28. It could potentially take three to five days to turn power back on.
We have decided that all schools in Novato Unified will be closed for Monday, October 28, 2019. This means all meetings and before and after-school programs, such as athletics and childcare, are also canceled at all schools.
We will continue to closely monitor this situation and will do our best to inform you of our plans for Tuesday, October 29, by 5:00 PM on Monday, October 28.
As a reminder of our protocol:
- If power is down and not anticipated to be restored prior to the start of the next school day, the decision will be made to close the school by the evening before.
- If power is down and we are unsure if it will be restored prior to the start of the next school day, the decision will be made to close the school by 5:30 AM that morning.
Decisions will be made on a day-by-day basis.We will attempt to communicate through our traditional channels of emails, text messages, social media and our website. It is possible that internet, landline telephone, and cellular services will be down and none of those communications will work by Monday afternoon. If this is the case, we will be posting paper signs at the front offices of all campuses to inform you of the status of schools for the following day. We will do the same, if necessary, each day moving forward.Communication is likely to be a significant challenge during this outage. We will do our absolute best to keep you informed given the tools available to us.The Novato Unified School District office (1015 7th Street) will be open and at least minimally staffed from 8:00 AM to 4:00 PM, Monday through Friday, throughout any outage, whether we have power or not. Please stop by should you have any questions or concerns.
In order to stay as up to date as possible on the most current information, our public safety officials are recommending that you register your contact information at the following sites:
www.nixle.com (text zip codes to 888777)
PG&E Alerts for Account Holders
PG&E Zip Code Alerts for non-account holders (sign up for your school’s zip code)
Here are some additional links with important resources to assist you in being prepared at home.
PG&E 7-Day Power Shutoff Potential
Sincerely,
Kris Cosca, EdD
Superintendent