Campuses in the Los Angeles Unified School District will shut down completely beginning Thursday for all in-person tutoring and special services, Superintendent Austin Beutner has announced.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the closures immediately affect some 4,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade and outdoor conditioning for athletes.
"Because of the dangerously high level of Covid-19 in the Los Angeles area, it is no longer safe and appropriate to have any students on campus," Beutner says in a video message to the community.
Beutner’s emergency order comes on the first day of a sweeping stay-at-home order across much of California and as Los Angeles County’s coronavirus rates reach unprecedented numbers.
The announcement makes prospects for fully reopening the nation’s second-largest school district recede further into 2021.
L.A. Unified was barely beginning to bring students back to campuses — fewer than 1% of students were receiving any in-person services.
Negotiations are underway with the teachers union to extend a distance-learning agreement into 2021.
Beutner says the crisis necessitates a “Marshall Plan for Schools,” alluding to the all-in, high-cost program by the United States to rebuild Europe after World War II.
The district's plan, he says, should contain four essential elements: creating a safe school environment; school-based coronavirus testing and contact tracing; mental-health support for children; and funding for in-person instruction next summer.
The district has released some results of a parent survey, indicating that “more than a third” of parents wanted to send their children back to campus. Those who responded more recently, says Beutner, were less eager to return to campus, opting instead to remain with distance learning.
