Snow day? How to find out if Langley schools are closed (and whether your street gets plowed)
Langley schools stay open until the district says otherwise, and that call usually comes by 6:30 am. Where it shows up first, what happens with buses, which roads get plowed first, and the 24-hour sidewalk rule.
It’s 6:10 am, it’s still dark, and there are four inches on the car. The kids are already lobbying. Here’s how to settle it fast, and what the rest of a Langley snow day looks like.
Are the schools closed?
Assume no until you hear otherwise. Langley School District (SD35) treats every school as open until a closure decision is actually needed, and that decision is usually made by 6:30 am. One district covers both the City and the Township, so you’re watching one source, not two.
Where does the closure show up first?
- An alert banner at the top of sd35.bc.ca and on each school’s own website, naming the schools affected. Read the names: an alert doesn’t have to mean every school.
- The district’s social accounts: Facebook, X (@LangleySchools) and Instagram.
- The Langley Schools app (iOS and Android), which pushes urgent alerts from the district and your kid’s school. If you only do one thing from this page, install it before the first flake.
- Radio: CKNW 730, Country 107.1, Pulse 107.7 and CBC Radio.
Power out but the phone still works? The district’s own advice is to text a friend or relative somewhere that still has power and ask them to check the website for you.
What about a late start or an early send-home?
Both are possible. On a bad-weather day the district can delay the start or send kids home early instead of closing. Families hear about that through SchoolMessenger (the district’s email and text system) and the district website, so make sure the school has your current cell number and email.
And the bus?
Bus schedules can change with the school’s status. District bus riders get notices through the My Ride K-12 app, plus email, phone and the district website. If your kid rides, that’s the second app to have on your phone.
The school’s open, but our road is a skating rink
That’s your call, not the school’s. The district says plainly that parents decide, based on safety and their own circumstances. If it isn’t safe to get there, keep them home and report the absence to the school the usual way.
Will our street get plowed?
Depends which Langley you’re in and what kind of street it is.
Township. Plowing runs on three tiers. First priority is about 401 km of arterial and major collector roads, school zones, bus routes and hilly areas, and those get crews for as long as conditions are bad. Second is about 196 km of commercial, industrial and through-residential roads, mostly during regular business hours. Third is everything else residential, and that’s condition-based: a plow may make one pass once the snow in the middle of the road is deeper than 250 mm (about 10 inches). If the main roads ice up again, crews get pulled back to them. Before a forecast storm the Township lays salt brine on the first-priority routes so the snow doesn’t bond to the pavement. On trails and paths, the first ones cleared are the busy hard-surface routes to a school or bus stop. The winter route map (PDF) shows which tier your street is in.
City. Main routes first, residential streets only once those are clear, with brine on the priority routes when conditions suit. The City’s priority map shows the order.
Who shovels the sidewalk?
You do, for the stretch in front of your place.
- Township homes: within 24 hours of the first accumulation. Businesses and institutions in the Township have to clear theirs by 10 am every day.
- City of Langley: within 24 hours of the snowfall, or before it gets deeper than 10 cm, whichever comes first (Bylaw 2871).
Two Township tips that save you redoing the job: pile your shovelled snow on the right-hand side of the driveway as you face the road, so the plow is less likely to push it back in, and move the car off the street if you can so the plow can get to the curb. Clearing the catch basin out front helps the melt drain instead of flooding the end of the driveway. Don’t push snow onto the road.
Who do I call?
- Township snow and ice requests: 604-532-7300 on weekdays; after hours and on weekends for anything serious: 604-543-6722.
- City engineering: 604-514-2997, or the City’s online service request form.
- Township garbage and recycling delays (Sierra Waste): 604-530-3939.
- Downed power lines go to BC Hydro, and anything life-threatening is 911.
For the bigger picture, our emergency preparedness guide covers power outages and storm kits, and How to check road closures in Langley has DriveBC and TransLink alerts for the drive in. And since the clocks stayed put this fall, those snowy mornings will be dark ones too: here’s what that means for the walk to school.