Champlain Valley School Closings Today — Status & Delays (Vermont)

Are Champlain Valley schools closed today? Check live status below — updated every 10 minutes.

Live status monitored for Champlain Valley School District (CVSD), Essex Westford School District (EWSD), and South Burlington School District (SBSD).

Champlain Valley School District (CVSD) posts closure and delay decisions on its official website, cvsdvt.org, and pushes alerts directly to families through the district’s SchoolMessenger system, which CVSD uses district-wide to deliver text messages about school closings, safety alerts, and other time-sensitive information. Because the school year runs across five separate towns — Charlotte, Hinesburg, Shelburne, St. George, and Williston — the closure call is made once, district-wide, from the CVSD central office in Shelburne, rather than town by town.

CVSD doesn’t publish a fixed decision deadline the way some larger metro districts do. Like most Vermont districts, the call is typically made as early as possible based on overnight road and weather conditions, with the district sometimes able to signal a likely delay or closure the evening before when a storm’s timing is already clear. Families can also confirm status directly through local TV and radio, since WCAX-TV (Channel 3, CBS), WPTZ NewsChannel 5 (NBC), and Local 22/Local 44 (WVNY/WFFF) all maintain live Vermont school-closings pages that update through the morning.

• Winter storms and heavy snow: A fast-moving nor’easter or a lake-effect snow band off Lake Champlain can drop several inches an hour, making the long rural bus routes through Charlotte and Hinesburg unsafe well before city streets in Shelburne or Williston see the same accumulation.
• Ice storms and freezing rain: A thin glaze of ice on rural roads and driveways is often more dangerous than several inches of snow, and can force a closure or delay even without heavy accumulation.
• Extreme cold and wind chill: Sub-zero wind chill advisories during Vermont’s coldest stretches (typically January and February) can trigger delays or closures out of concern for students waiting at rural bus stops.
• Flooding: Heavy rain or rapid snowmelt can cause localized flooding on Chittenden County roads, occasionally affecting CVSD bus routes even outside the winter months.
• High winds and downed trees: Coastal-style wind events off Lake Champlain and inland gusts can down trees and power lines across CVSD’s five-town footprint, sometimes closing individual roads a plow can’t quickly clear.

Frequently Asked Questions

How early does Champlain Valley School District announce school closures?

CVSD doesn’t publish a fixed cutoff time. The district typically makes its call as early as possible based on overnight conditions, and posts it to cvsdvt.org and through its SchoolMessenger alert system as soon as the decision is made — sometimes the evening before if a storm’s timing is already clear.

What’s the difference between a closure and a delay for CVSD?

A closure means no school for students anywhere in the district that day. A delay means school opens later than the normal schedule — usually one or two hours — to give road crews more time to treat CVSD’s rural routes before buses run. Delays are more common than full closures for routine winter weather.

Do all CVSD schools close together, or can individual schools close separately?

CVSD’s six schools — Champlain Valley Union High School and five PreK-8 schools across Charlotte, Hinesburg, Shelburne, and Williston — share bus routes and operate as a single district, so they almost always close, delay, or dismiss early together as one district-wide decision, not school by school.

Which TV stations report Champlain Valley school closings?

WCAX-TV (Channel 3, CBS), WPTZ NewsChannel 5 (NBC), and Local 22/Local 44 (WVNY/WFFF) are the primary Burlington-market TV stations that report CVSD and Chittenden County school closings. This page automatically monitors all of them alongside the district’s own website.

How often is this page updated?

Status checks run automatically every 15 minutes, or every 5 minutes during active weather alerts, so you don’t need to refresh the page yourself to see the latest status.

Does St. George, Vermont have its own school?

No — St. George is part of CVSD but is small enough that it doesn’t have its own school building; St. George students attend Charlotte Central School or another CVSD school depending on grade and enrollment. St. George families should still check CVSD’s district-wide status here, since a closure or delay applies to the whole district, not just the towns with a school building in them.

School Roster

Champlain Valley School District (CVSD)

High Schools

• Champlain Valley Union High School

PreK-8 Schools

• Allen Brook School
• Charlotte Central School
• Hinesburg Community School
• Shelburne Community School
• Williston Central School

Essex Westford School District (EWSD)

High Schools

• Essex High School

Middle Schools

• Essex Middle School
• Albert D. Lawton Intermediate School

Elementary/K-8 Schools

• Westford School

EWSD operates 10 schools district-wide; the remaining elementary schools are not individually confirmed here — see ewsd.org for the full list.

South Burlington School District (SBSD)

High Schools

• South Burlington High School

Middle Schools

• Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School

Elementary Schools

• Chamberlin School
• Orchard School
• Rick Marcotte Central School