LA Schools To Stay Closed Until At Least November
LOS ANGELES, CA — The fall is likely to come and go in Los Angeles without campuses reopening. Even as other Southland counties such as Orange and San Diego allow schools to reopen, Los Angeles County is following a much slower timeline.
No campus in Los Angeles County will be allowed to reopen to all K-12 students until at least November, although schools can begin to offer small in-person classes for children with special needs at no more than 10% of capacity at one time, says County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. The announcement comes on the same day a newly reopened school in San Diego shut down again due to student coronavirus cases identified just days after reopening. It also comes as the California State University system announced plans to hold the spring classes online, shattering hopes that things would return to normal by next year. Students, parents and educators in LA had been hoping that progress against the coronavirus might allow for campuses to reopen on a faster tract, but health officials are urging caution.
Meanwhile, in Orange County, the Los Alamitos Unified School District opened its elementary school classrooms, and the rest of the county is expected to be able to apply for reopenings next week. In LA, county health officials have said they will not consider any waiver applications for public or private schools looking to reopen. However, the small in-person classes for children who need special services, announced last week, could allow at least 200,000 students back to campus across the county.
No districts are currently required to offer in-person services to students, and officials with both the L.A. Unified School District and the district's teachers union have said they are opposed to any full campus reopenings at this time, citing safety concerns.
Some smaller school districts and private schools had hoped to open elementary campuses through a state-permitted waiver process, but Ferrer said that the county would not grant waivers. State guidelines allow for such waivers to help young students who have particular difficulties with online learning.
Ferrer explained the county's new policies in two calls Thursday with school and district leaders. One was a health department briefing; the other was a briefing arranged by the L.A. County Office of Education, which provides support services to the county's 80 school districts. The Los Angeles Times was able to listen to both briefings, and KFI radio on Thursday aired an audio recording of comments Ferrer made.
Ferrer said the county's approach is part of a multipronged state and county effort to open schools safely.
First, small groups can begin coming to campuses as soon as Monday and no approval from the county is required provided that schools attest that they are following required safety guidelines, Ferrer said, according to The Times.
The students who come back must be defined as having special needs. Top priority will be given to students with disabilities and students who are learning to speak English. Schools and school districts have flexibility to identify which students need in-person instruction.
Students can meet one-on-one with a teacher or another staff member or in groups as large as 12 with as many as two adult supervisors or teachers.
A campus cannot be at more than 10% of capacity at any given time. However, there is no defined limit on how many students can be served over multiple days. For example, one group of students could be served on campus two days a week and another group on a different two days. Such a plan could add up to a lot of students, close to 100,000 in Los Angeles Unified alone, for example, according to The Times.
School leaders on the call with Ferrer expressed some excitement about the possibility of bringing some students back, potentially with minimal delay, The Times reported. It was an opening for which they had been waiting.
The county plans to study data from this smaller-scale start-up over the next six weeks before making any conclusions about a broader school reopening, Ferrer said. That's why a general reopening won't happen until at least November, The Times reported.
Several months ago, officials had planned for campuses to reopen in the fall, but this target was pushed back indefinitely by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July. Now, school reopenings are based on a county's pandemic health status or the approval of the waiver applications for elementary schools.
L.A. County is in the highest tier for danger from the pandemic, which means a general reopening of schools is not currently permitted under state orders. Long Beach Unified, the county's second-largest school system, told parents Thursday that the district would continue online-only instruction through the winter break to provide instructional stability.
The county on Thursday reported another 42 coronavirus-related deaths, while Long Beach health officials announced three more fatalities, bringing the countywide total from throughout the pandemic to 6,131.
County health officials announced 1,239 new cases, while Long Beach reported 49 and Pasadena added two, lifting the overall cumulative countywide total to 251,075.
A total of 940 people were hospitalized due to the virus as of Thursday.
City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on the Los Angeles Patch
