Jared Hasen-Klein
Webmaster
UPDATE 12/15/17: Milken has also changed the end of the year schedule. Wednesday 6/6/18 will be an A-Day, Thursday 6/7/18 is the new date for Lishma Day, and final exams will take place 6/8/18 to 6/13/18.
On Tuesday, December 5, 2017, Milken was forced to close due to the Creek Fire in Sylmar. While Milken faced no immediate danger from those flames, the air quality was too poor to conduct normal activities. On Tuesday night, Milken announced that they would need to keep school closed on Wednesday because of continued poor air quality. On Wednesday morning, news broke of the Skirball Fire, much closer to Milken. While Milken was still not in immediate danger, the evacuation zone just barely missed the campus, and so the administration then made the decision to stay closed through the end of the week. Consequently, all school activities, including the 10th and 11th grade shabbatons and senior mystery night, were cancelled.
All Los Angeles Unified School District schools in the San Fernando Valley and some on the westside (including many Santa Monica and Malibu schools) were also closed Thursday and Friday.
Barring any major developments with the fires, classes will resume on Monday. This will allow enough time for the operations team to verify the safety of the campus and conduct a thorough cleaning.
Classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were missed along with grade level programming that was scheduled for Friday. A town meeting will be held Monday to discuss the fire and scheduling moving forward as well as give time for the community to come together after such an intense experience. In the interim, please take note of the following changes:
- Friday 12/15/17 will now be a B-Day
- Friday 1/12/18 will now be an A-Day
- Friday 3/2/18 is now a school day (previously scheduled as a Teacher Workshop Day)
For more details, click here to read a letter from Head of School Mr. Gary Weisserman and click here to read a letter regarding the cleanup process from Director of Safety and Operations Mr. Nathan Humphreys. For more specific details about moving forward on the Upper School campus, click here to read a letter from Principal Dr. Kimberly Schwartz.
Even though Milken is slated to soon reopen, there is still extreme fire danger throughout parts of Southern California. The Thomas Fire is still burning strong in Ventura county and several other, smaller fires are popping up all around the southland. The authorities recommend keeping the “7Ps” ready in case of emergency: People/pets, personal items, papers/phone numbers/important documents, prescriptions/vitamins/eyeglasses, pictures/irreplaceable memorabilia, personal computers, and plastics (credit cards, ATM cards, etc.)/cash.