Tacoma School Closings Today — Live Status & Delays (Washington)

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

Live status monitored for Tacoma Public Schools (TPS), Clover Park School District (CPSD), Franklin Pierce School District (FPSD), University Place School District (UPSD), and Fife Public Schools.

How Tacoma School Closures Are Announced

Tacoma school closings today start with a call from Tacoma Public Schools (TPS), which posts closures and delays to its official website at tacomaschools.org, notifies families through its ParentVUE-linked communication system, and asks local radio and TV stations to broadcast the announcement — TPS’s own board policy specifically directs the district to request that local stations carry closure notices. The district’s inclement-weather team weighs National Weather Service forecasts, road conditions across different parts of the district, and how neighboring districts are responding before making a call, and it does not shift to remote learning when snow or ice forces a closure.

Most Puget Sound-area superintendents, TPS included, aim to have a decision out by 5:00–5:30 a.m. on the morning of, though for a clearly forecast storm the district will sometimes announce the evening before so families can plan childcare. TPS also builds one or more contingency “snow make-up” days into its official calendar each year; those days only become actual no-school days if they end up not being needed to make up a lost day, so they aren’t guaranteed closures on their own. Neighboring districts covered on this page — Clover Park, Franklin Pierce, University Place, and Fife — each make their own separate closure decisions, which is why it’s common to see them diverge from TPS (and from each other) during a borderline weather event.

Weather Risks That Affect Tacoma-Area Schools

• Snow and ice on hills: Tacoma’s hilly terrain, combined with limited de-icing equipment and a driving population that gets little snow practice, means even a light dusting or a thin layer of ice on secondary roads can be enough to delay or close schools and disrupt bus routes.
• Wind storms off Puget Sound: Strong southwesterly wind events can down trees and power lines across Pierce County, knocking out power to school buildings or blocking bus routes well before any snow is involved.
• Heavy rain and localized flooding: Atmospheric-river storms can dump enough rain to flood low-lying roads and intersections around Tacoma and the Puyallup River valley, occasionally forcing bus-route changes or delays independent of any winter weather.
• Freezing fog and black ice: Cold, still mornings in the Puget Sound lowlands can produce freezing fog and black ice on bridges and overpasses that’s difficult to see and doesn’t always show up in a routine forecast.
• Power outages: Because closures are often driven as much by outages at school buildings (heat, water, safety systems) as by road conditions, a district can close even on a day with clear skies if storm damage from the night before knocked out power.
• Wildfire smoke: Smoke drifting in from wildfires east of the Cascades or in Canada can push regional air quality into unhealthy ranges in late summer, leading districts to restrict outdoor activity rather than close outright — Tacoma Public Schools has a published air-quality protocol for exactly this scenario.

Frequently Asked Questions

How early does Tacoma Public Schools announce school closures?

Tacoma Public Schools typically aims to announce a closure or delay by around 5:00–5:30 a.m. on the day itself, though for a storm that’s clearly forecast in advance, the district will sometimes make the call and notify families the evening before.

What’s the difference between a closure and a delayed start in Tacoma?

A closure means TPS buildings and district activities are canceled for the entire day, with no out-of-district transportation. A delayed start (most often a two-hour delay) means school still happens that day, but on a later bell schedule — buses run their normal routes shifted by the length of the delay, so a stop that’s usually picked up at 8:05 a.m. would be picked up around 10:05 a.m. on a two-hour-delay day.

Do all Tacoma-area school districts close together?

No. Tacoma Public Schools, Clover Park, Franklin Pierce, University Place, and Fife are separate districts that each make their own closure decisions based on conditions in their specific service area, so it’s common — especially in a borderline storm — for some to close or delay while others stay open.

Which Tacoma/Seattle-area TV stations report school closings?

KING 5, KOMO 4, and KIRO 7 are the main Seattle-Tacoma television stations that maintain live closures-and-delays lists during winter weather events. This page automatically monitors these stations alongside each district’s own website.

How often is this page updated?

Status checks run automatically every 15 minutes, or as often as every 5 minutes during an active weather alert, so the status shown here should track closely with what each district has posted on its own site.

Does Tacoma Public Schools switch to remote learning on a snow day?

No. Per district policy, Tacoma Public Schools treats a weather closure as a true day off rather than shifting to remote instruction, and instead builds contingency “snow make-up” days into its official school-year calendar in case they’re needed to make up lost instructional time.

School Roster

Tacoma Public Schools

High Schools

• Foss High School
• iDEA (Industrial Design, Engineering and Art)
• Lincoln High School
• Mount Tahoma High School
• Oakland High School
• SAMi (Science and Math Institute)
• SOTA (School of the Arts)
• Silas High School
• Stadium High School
• Tacoma Online
• Willie Stewart Academy

Middle Schools

• Baker Middle School
• Bryant Middle School
• First Creek Middle School
• Giaudrone Middle School
• Gray Middle School
• Hilltop Heritage Middle School
• Hunt Middle School
• Mason Middle School
• Meeker Middle School
• Stewart Middle School
• Truman Middle School
• Wainwright Middle School
• Tacoma Online

Elementary Schools

• Arlington Elementary
• Birney Elementary
• Blix Elementary
• Boze Elementary
• Browns Point Elementary
• Bryant Montessori
• Crescent Heights Elementary
• DeLong Elementary
• Downing Elementary
• Edison Elementary
• Fawcett Elementary
• Fern Hill Elementary
• Franklin Elementary
• Geiger Montessori
• Grant Elementary
• Jefferson Elementary
• Larchmont Elementary
• Lister Elementary
• Lowell Elementary
• Lyon Elementary
• Manitou Park Elementary
• Mann Elementary
• Northeast Tacoma Elementary
• Point Defiance Elementary
• Reed Elementary
• Roosevelt Elementary
• Sheridan Elementary
• Sherman Elementary
• Skyline Elementary
• Stafford Elementary
• Stanley Elementary
• Travis Elementary
• Wainwright Elementary
• Washington Elementary
• Whitman Elementary
• Whittier Elementary
• Tacoma Online

Clover Park School District

High Schools

• Clover Park High School
• Lakes High School

Middle Schools

• Hudtloff Middle School
• Lochburn Middle School
• Thomas Middle School

Other Sites

• Gravelly Lake K-12 Academy
• Harrison Preparatory (6-12)

Elementary schools for this district (16 of its 23 total sites) were not individually confirmed from an official roster in this pass — see cloverpark.k12.wa.us for the complete list.

Franklin Pierce School District

High Schools

• Franklin Pierce High School
• Washington High School
• GATES High School

Middle Schools

• Morris E. Ford Middle School
• Perry G. Keithley Middle School

Elementary Schools

• Brookdale Elementary School

This district’s full elementary roster was not fully confirmed from an official source in this pass — see fpschools.org for the complete list.

University Place School District

High Schools

• Curtis Senior High School

Junior High Schools

• Curtis Junior High School

Intermediate Schools

• Narrows View Intermediate
• Drum Intermediate

Primary Schools

• Chambers Primary
• Sunset Primary
• University Place Primary
• Evergreen Primary

Fife Public Schools

High Schools

• Fife High School

Junior High Schools

• Columbia Junior High

Middle Schools

• Surprise Lake Middle School

Elementary Schools

• Fife Elementary School
• Hedden Elementary School
• Discovery Primary School