Date: November 14, 2018

Dear FUSD Families,

Thank you for sharing your feedback and ideas with us over the past few days as we deal with air quality issues caused by the wildfires in Northern California. We appreciate your outreach and input as we work through the challenges of dealing with a situation that, as we saw this week, can change rapidly. We’ve refined our plans over the past 24 hours by using our emergency radio system to immediately inform school staff of changes in protocols, created a new Air Quality Alerts webpage on our district website, and will continue to use a variety of communication tools to provide parents and families up to date information through Bright Arrow, social media, and the district website.

The pattern (if one can be identified) seems to be that the school day starts off in the 'Moderate' (yellow) zone and then moves into the 'Unhealthy for Special Groups' (orange) range in the 11 AM-12PM time frame. By early afternoon, we are almost uniformly seeing the Air Quality Index move past 150 into the 'Unhealthy' (red) range, at which point we cancel all outdoors activities and sports.

I understand there are concerns as these conditions persist and we continue to adjust our procedures accordingly. Until the air improves, we will continue to watch the AQI and remain in contact with the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE) and other health agencies to ensure we are doing whatever is necessary for the safety of our students and staff. While we have not received information yet from ACOE on the exact Air Quality level at which we would close schools entirely, we respect the decisions of parents to have their students stay home if they are feeling ill or unable to attend school for health reasons tomorrow or Friday.

I encourage you to regularly check the District website and social media for updates, and watch your email/voicemail for correspondence from myself or your school principal with the latest information.

I thank you for your patience as our response to this challenging situation evolves.

Kim Wallace
Superintendent