School closures for weather alerts: what to do and how to tell families

October 2026 brought several reminders that a red warning can change a school's day within hours. On 1 and 2 October, a red alert for rain led to classes being suspended in several municipalities in Valencia and Castellón. On 5 October, the Catalan government suspended classes at schools in the Maresme, Vallès Occidental and Vallès Oriental after Civil Protection sent an Es-Alert warning to mobile phones. And on 19 October, the Valencian education department suspended teaching activity in 42 municipalities in Valencia and Alicante, affecting some 87,000 students; in many homes the decision arrived on Sunday afternoon.

For a school, a nursery or an academy, the question is not only whether to open. It is how every family finds out, within an hour and with the same information, what is suspended, until when, and what happens to meals or the bus. This article proposes a simple protocol for before, during and after.

Who decides what

It helps to be clear about who does what, because a lot of information from different sources circulates during an alert:

• AEMET, Spain's state weather agency, issues yellow, orange and red warnings. It does not close schools.
• Each region's Civil Protection can send Es-Alert warnings to mobile phones in an area and ask people not to travel or to stay in safe places.
• The education authority agrees the suspension of teaching activity, usually by municipality. In some cases the local council also does so for its own area, as happened on 19 October in flood-prone areas of the city of Valencia.

If your school is private or state-funded private, read the resolution in full: some refer to all schools in the affected municipalities and others only to teaching activity. If your school is not expressly mentioned, the useful question is a different one: if Civil Protection asks people not to travel, opening forces families out onto the street. The same goes for an afternoon academy or after-school activities.

Es-Alert in two lines

Es-Alert is Civil Protection's warning system in Spain: it sends a message to every mobile phone in a specific area, with no app to install and no sign-up. The most serious alerts sound even when the phone is on silent.

In a school, that means that if an alert arrives during lessons, staff phones and those of students who have one will all go off at once. Teachers should know in advance what to do: read the alert, keep the group calm and follow the head's instructions, since the head decides whether to activate the emergency plan.

Before: what to prepare on a quiet day

1. One person who decides, and a deputy. With a name and phone number, and with the authority to suspend services without waiting for a meeting.
2. The sources you monitor. AEMET's warnings for your area, the website and social media of your region's Civil Protection or 112 service, the education authority and the local council.
3. Up-to-date contacts. Every family with access to the school app and at least two up-to-date phone numbers. October is a good time to check.
4. Messages written in advance. Three templates: suspension the next day, change during the school day, and reopening. Nobody writes well in an emergency.
5. Services, one by one. Who tells the canteen caterer, the transport company, the after-school and breakfast club staff, and how much notice each of them needs. If you run bus routes, we cover it in school transport management.
6. The school's emergency plan. Check that it covers weather events, such as floods or strong winds, and not only fire: where students shelter, which areas to avoid and who does the head count.

During: one message, clear and complete

When the decision arrives the evening before, what helps families most is a single message through the official channel that answers everything at once:

• What is suspended: classes, meals, transport, after-school activities, breakfast club.
• Until when: the specific day, and whether afternoon activities go ahead.
• When the next update will come: for example, "tomorrow at 7:30 we will confirm whether activity resumes on Wednesday".
• Where to check: the school app, not messaging groups, where rumours, old screenshots and notices from other towns get mixed up.

If the alert gets worse with students at school, the priority changes. Follow your emergency plan and Civil Protection's instructions. If people are asked to stay in safe places, students remain at school, and the message to families should say so plainly: the children are being looked after and nobody should come to collect them until the authorities allow it. A parent driving under a red warning to pick up their child is at more risk than the child in the classroom.

Each type of school has its own case

• Nursery. With babies, a staggered departure cannot be improvised. If children stay longer than planned, you need nappies, milk, food and enough staff to keep ratios, so it helps to have a small reserve and to know which educators can stay on.
• School with meals and transport. The critical moment is when the bus routes leave. The decision to bring forward, delay or cancel the bus is taken with the transport company and communicated to the families on each route, not to the whole school, so as not to confuse those who do not use it.
• Afternoon academy. The decision usually comes after the authorities have closed the area's schools. If students are not going to school in the morning, they probably cannot come in the afternoon either, so it is worth deciding and telling families as soon as the suspension is known, and explaining how the class will be made up.
• After-school activities run by external companies. The instructors depend on another company, which may take its own decision. The school should know who tells whom and what families are told if the activity is cancelled at the last minute.

What the message should not include

• Your own forecasts. The school is not a weather source. Better to refer to official warnings than to interpret a map.
• Instructions that contradict Civil Protection. Never ask families to come and collect their children if the authorities are asking people not to travel.
• Times that may change. If something may move, say when it will be updated instead of giving a time as certain.
• Details about specific students. If a student is in a special situation, speak to their family directly, not in a general message.

After: attendance, services and catching up

• Attendance. If teaching activity is suspended, there is no class that day and it should not be recorded as an absence. If the closure is partial or some students cannot get in, record it as an absence justified by the storm.
• Meals and services. Explain what happens to the cost of meals or transport on the suspended days, according to your terms. It is better to say it in the reopening message than to wait for questions.
• Academy classes and after-school activities. If they are made up, give the date as soon as possible; if not, explain why.
• Review. A short meeting to note what worked and what did not: what time the decision arrived, how long the message took to go out and which families did not receive it.

Three sample messages

Suspension the next day: "Because of the red alert, and following the education authority's resolution, classes, meals, transport and after-school activities are suspended tomorrow, Tuesday. At 7:30 we will confirm whether activity resumes on Wednesday. All official information will be in the app."

Change during the school day: "Following Civil Protection's instructions, students are staying at school, in safe areas and with their teachers. They are fine. Please do not travel to collect them until the warning is lifted; we will write to you as soon as it is safe to leave."

Reopening: "Activity resumes tomorrow with the normal timetable, including meals and transport. The day of suspension does not count as an absence. The attached message explains what happens with that day's meals."

Conclusion

October's weather alerts have shown that the decision to suspend classes can arrive on a Sunday afternoon or mid-morning with students in the classroom. A school that already knows who decides, which sources it monitors, which services it has to cancel and which message it will send conveys calm. One that improvises leaves families looking for information in messaging groups.

If you want to send notices to all families or only to those in one group, through an official channel and the school app, see Edena's school communication or book a demo.