As fire crews fought to get a handle on the raging Thomas fire, all but one school district in Santa Barbara County decided to cancel Monday classes, officials said late Sunday.
Several of those districts — including Carpinteria Unified, Montecito Unified, Cold Spring, Santa Barbara Unified, Hope Elementary and Goleta — will be closed until after the New Year. Students had been scheduled to start winter break Dec. 18.
Meanwhile, UC Santa Barbara Chancellor Henry T. Yang announced that the university has postponed final exams until next year.
Power outages and air quality issues, along with the confusion over an emergency alert that buzzed cellphones countywide around 2 a.m. “have only continued to raise the level of anxiety at an already stressful time,” Yang wrote in a letter to the campus. “Continuation of scheduled exams has become untenable.”