Seattle closing public schools for two weeks

Public schools in Seattle will close for two weeks amid the coronavirus outbreak, the city announced Wednesday.

The school district, in email to administrators, instructed them to treat the closures like spring break, the Seattle Times reported.

The email acknowledged outstanding issues relating to human resources, food services, budgeting, graduations and special education, saying they would be addressed in the near future.

“We want to reassure you that we recognize you can’t do it all in such a compressed time. Continue to do the best you can for your students and staff,” the email said.

“We know that closing our schools will impact our most vulnerable families, and we recognize that working families depend on the consistency and predictability of supports and services our schools offer,” Seattle Public Schools said in another email. “Our goal has been to keep our doors open as long as possible in order to support our students and the entire community.”

The announcement comes the same day Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) announced that events of more than 250 people would be banned in King, Snohomish and Pierce counties. The state has seen 267 confirmed coronavirus cases thus far, but Inslee said there were likely “hundreds of thousands” of cases among people who did not know it.

“There is no magic silver bullet at the moment medically, but there is a very successful effort that we can take to slow the spread of this disease and that’s to reduce the social interactions that are not necessary in our lives,” he said.