Students in Los Angeles Unified should be able to return to all-day, in-person instruction in the fall, assuming schedules are adjusted, more people in the community get vaccinated and the level of coronavirus infections continue to drop, Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday, April 26.
As the district’s secondary students prepare to head back to classrooms this week — the first time in more than a year — Beutner acknowledged that middle and high schoolers won’t receive in-person instruction in most of their classes under a school day scenario that has been widely criticized by parents.
But he defended the decision to have students remain in their advisory classroom all day for the time being, noting that if they were to travel to all six or seven of their classes as they would under normal circumstances, they would come in contact with approximately 250 people, even if class sizes were smaller. A single person with the coronavirus could end up infecting many more, the superintendent said.
“At this time, we’re going to err on the side of caution to keep people safe for the few weeks remaining in the semester,” he said. “And it wouldn’t make any sense to change school schedules this late in the school year.”
However, he said, by adjusting school schedules for the fall, the district could limit the number of people students interact with each day. That, along with more people getting vaccinated and a decrease in COVID-19 transmission “should allow for all-day, in-person instruction when the new school year starts,” he said.
It was not clear if he meant five days a week for all students, including at the secondary level, or if middle and high school students would continue to alternate the days they’re on campus. The district and teachers union are still negotiating what the school day will look like for fall semester.
Earlier this month, Gov. Gavin Newsom had said he expected all schools to reopen for in-person learning full time in the fall.
All elementary schools and early education centers have now reopened, and middle and high schools will welcome students back this week. Sixth and ninth graders will return on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on which cohort they’re in. Likewise, students in the remaining secondary grade levels will return Thursday or Friday.
Unlike elementary students who are getting three hours of classroom instruction with their teachers, students at the secondary level will wear noise-canceling headphones to learn online while remaining in their advisory class all day, a scenario commonly referred to as “Zoom in a room.”
Their day will start with an advisory period, which Beutner described as “in-person, teacher-led engagement,” and students will have lunch outdoors with classmates while maintaining social distancing.
Covid-19 testing hiccups
As the district reopen schools in phases, the district is continuing to insist on testing students and staff who are on campus weekly for the coronavirus — a requirement which some families say is too frequent and unnecessary, and which has been raised in a lawsuit against the district over its school reopening plans.
But Beutner stressed the importance of regular testing, noting that in the past three weeks, 301 people — 105 employees and 196 students — tested positive for the coronavirus and were therefore kept out of the classrooms before their campuses reopened.
He also reported that 31 student athletes, six elementary students and four adults were found to be infected through ongoing weekly tests. The higher number of cases identified among athletes is due in part to the fact that they started testing earlier, said Beutner. Nearly 24,000 high school students have been participating in athletic programs for more than a month, he said.
When a positive case is identified, the district notifies all close contacts — defined as anyone who has been within 6 feet of the infected person for 15 minutes or longer — to quarantine for 10 days and to take a coronavirus test on the fifth day. All other students and staff in the infected individual’s cohort will also be informed if they’ve been in close contact with the person, and the entire school will be notified and informed which cohort was affected.
While touting the district’s testing program — which is considered the largest school-based effort in the country — Beutner acknowledged that there have been “hiccups” along the way.
Some parents have reported in social media posts that they weren’t able to book testing appointments online or stood in line for two to three hours at district testing sites over the last two weeks as elementary students had to get their baseline test completed before returning to campus. There has also been at least one report of testing result mix-ups.
And at Catskill Avenue Elementary in Carson, parent Brissa Giron said the company the district hired to conduct weekly on-campus tests did not finish testing all students the week of April 12, the first week that students were back in classrooms. As a result, Giron said she had to take her second-grade daughter to a pharmacy over the weekend to get tested, but because the results did not come back in time, her daughter was not allowed to return to campus the following Monday. Moreover, Giron said she was told her daughter could not join the online class that day since she is enrolled in the hybrid program. Therefore, her daughter received no formal instruction that day.
When told about Giron’s situation last week, Beutner said schools should have rapid antigen tests available for students who weren’t tested on the day a mobile crew administering the tests is on campus. He also said it’s not the district’s policy to not allow students to log in online from home.
On Monday, the superintendent said a COVID-19 testing program as large as the district’s is bound to experience some hiccups. The district provided more than 300,000 tests in preparation of school reopenings and is testing approximately 25,000 to 30,000 people daily, or more than a third of all tests in the L.A. area on average, he said. The district is on track to provide its 1 millionth COVID-19 test this week.
“Our goal is regular, weekly tests, but on a few occasions, it might be eight or even 14 days between tests,” Beutner said. “There’s no bright line in science between these two scenarios. We’ll still be operating the most comprehensive system in the nation to keep COVID out of schools.”
On the vaccination front, the superintendent said the district is currently operating four school-based vaccination clinics, with 15 more set to open over the next few weeks. The district previously announced it would open 25 sites to provide access to vaccines to adults in hard-hit communities. More recently, Beutner has also touted these facilities’ role in helping vaccinate students under 16 once vaccines are approved for children.
More returning to in-person learning
District officials have warned all along that there would be bumps in the road as schools reopen. Regarding issues related to the COVID-19 tests, Beutner said in an interview last week that he expects the worst of it to be over.
With hundreds of schools reopening at once and students and staff all having to get their baseline tests at the same time, and as the company administering the tests transitioned to mobile units deployed to campuses, it resulted in delays. But, Beutner said he doesn’t expect these bottlenecks to occur once all schools have reopened and everyone settles into a routine.
This week, he said the district is seeing an increase in students returning to school. For example, of the 61 initial elementary schools to reopen, less than half of the 8,500 students who had signed up to return the first week actually attended in person. But by the end of the second week, 9,524 students had enrolled for in-person learning at those schools, and 7,478 were present.
“Families are hearing from friends, classmates and neighbors that we’re reopening schools the right way in Los Angeles Unified, and the school environment is safe,” Beutner said. “The word’s spreading, and we are seeing an increase in the numbers of students returning to school each day.”
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LAUSD students should be able to return to all-day, in-person instruction in fall, superintendent says - LA Daily News
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