On Feb. 8, one day after a massive mudslide closed both northbound lanes of Highway 17, school secretary Pola-Michelle Alas scrambled to find substitutes for the 17 teachers who were unable to make it to school.
Since it is impossible to know which teachers will miss school on a given day this rainy season, finding substitutes has been an extremely difficult task.
“It’s definitely challenging because sometimes, even substitutes don’t want to come and fill in,” Alas said. “Thankfully, we’ve had some district office staff who were aware of the situation and helped out.”
This problem has happened often in January and February in one of the wettest California winters on record. For many teachers who live in the Santa Cruz area or in the mountains, the decision to try to come to school in the harrowing conditions has been a tough one.
“In my 20 years living in Santa Cruz, I have never experienced such a dangerous winter with weekly road closures, mudslides and very scary driving,” journalism adviser Mike Tyler said.
Because so many classes need substitutes on a weekly basis, Alas has turned to asking other teachers and staff members to fill in for other classes.
About 30 percent of Saratoga’s teachers travel on Highway 17 to get to school every day, so many teachers are often unable to make it to and from school because of mudslides that have hit parts of Highway 17 and other roads such as Highway 9. Though most of Highway 17 has opened up, it remains blocked in the northbound direction at Vine Hill Road by a massive and still-dangerous mudslide.
The one-way traffic has resulted in one- and two-hour delays for commuters. Tyler said he has had to wake up at 4:40 a.m. and leave his house by 5:30 to allow plenty of time to get to school.
English teachers Amy Keys and Suzanne Herzman, who often carpool to school from their homes on the west side of Santa Cruz, are among the teachers who have struggled getting to and from school. On Jan. 9, the first day of the second semester, it took two hours to travel around 5 miles from Santa Cruz to Scotts Valley because traffic was backed up after a mudslide on Highway 17.
With both 17 and Highway 9 closed, the two had no chance of making it to school on time and had to call for substitutes to cover their classes.
“When we realized that we weren’t going anywhere, we pulled over, went to a cafe and waited for another three hours to see if the highway would open,” Keys said. “The highway never opened, so at that point, we just went home.”
If the weather-related delays weren’t enough, on Jan 26, many Santa Cruzans had an even longer delay home due to a bank robber on the loose in the Redwood Estates area that forced Highway 17 to shut down.
Because many of such highways are closed often, teachers have had to find roundabout routes home, such as heading south to Highway 129 or heading north to Highway 92 near Half Moon Bay. Though these trips usually take at least double the commute time, teachers appreciate these alternative routes as they are able to drive safely.
Because of the dangerous conditions, many teachers who live locally in Campbell or San Jose, such as English teacher Ken Nguyen, have offered to have some teachers over for dinner. Math teacher Seema Patel opened her San Jose home last week to Herzman and English teacher Meg Battey to stay overnight.
“Because the weather has truly been awful, anyone who wants to stay at my house is more than welcome to,” Patel said. “It’s a really long trip for some teachers and I don’t want them to spend hours going home so I have no problem hosting my friends.”
However, some such as math teacher Jennifer Mantle, who lives in Boulder Creek, have to experience even worse conditions because of the mountain terrain. According to Mantle, since September, her town has experienced more than 50 inches of rain. Because the rain often washes off parts of the roads, Mantle has often needed to find alternative roads to get to school, such as taking Page Mill Road to Palo Alto or other roads to Scotts Valley and then to school on Highway 17.
The upside of all this weather-related chaos is that the rain has eased the drought throughout the state; in fact, almost all of Northern California is now out of the drought. While many are appreciative of this change, staff and teachers have experienced the unfortunate side effects of the record rainstorms.
“We’ve definitely had lots of rain, but it’s extremely hard as a teacher to keep driving here every day,” Tyler said. “Overall, these past couple of months have just been tough in terms of traveling to work.”