Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner on Monday committed to reopening campuses full time on a normal schedule in the fall, in perhaps his clearest statement yet to students and families.
The L.A. Unified School District — like all school systems in California — will soon need to abide by the state resumption of rules that largely link funding to in-person school attendance in the new academic year. Emergency pandemic rules that have allowed districts to operate online expire on June 30.
“Looking down the path to recovery and the new school year which starts this fall, all students will have the opportunity to participate in full-day, on-campus, in-person instruction,” Beutner said in his regular Monday broadcast.
If that wasn’t direct enough, Beutner clarified further.
“That means elementary school students will be on campus five days a week for a full day of in-person instruction with their teacher and classmates,” the superintendent said. “Middle school and high school students will be on campus five days a week for a full schedule of instruction, changing classrooms for each period. For both elementary and secondary students, after-school programs will be available from the end of the school day until 6 p.m.”
While his broadcast is prerecorded, Beutner’s words offered a direct response to about 70 parents who gathered outside district headquarters on Sunday to demand a full reopening. Some of the organizers are involved in litigation that makes similar demands.
Elementary campuses are currently operating on a hybrid schedule, with students on campus for half the school day. Middle and high school students also can choose to be on campus half-time, but once there, they remain in one classroom where they work online, just as they would have at home. The vast majority of students have remained at home.
The parents who participated in the demonstration were not yet reassured that the schedule will return to normal.
They have been worried that the L.A. Board of Education has not officially voted to return to a normal schedule, as has happened in some other school systems. And they view recent statements by teachers union President Cecily Myart-Cruz as indicating she intends to hold the next school year hostage unless the district agrees to a list of union demands.
Some of us are hoping that a year of remote work will lead to greater job flexibility. Others can’t wait to get out of the house.
In her own broadcast last week, Myart-Cruz did not say the union would oppose a resumption of a full-time schedule, but she made it clear that the union intends to negotiate intensely for working and learning conditions that she said would be in the best interests of educators and families.
“Educators face a lot of pressure to return to schools without agreed-upon health and safety procedures, but we held the line because we are a fighting union that centers our students and communities in the work we do,” Myart-Cruz said. “Our fight for safety protected tens of thousands of families outside our union.”
She also noted that the district “has signaled that it plans to fully reopen with an overwhelming majority of staff and students physically attending school five days per week, unless pandemic conditions change for the worst.”
The Reclaim Our Schools coalition, which is allied with the union, is organizing students and parents who are in support of the union’s call to keep pressing on health and safety issues. On that front, district officials are insisting that no battle cry is needed: They say they fully intend to follow strict safety protocols.
Since mid-March 2020, school systems have operated under emergency rules allowing for online-only schedules and hybrid formats that return students to campus for part of a typical school week. These rules were set to expire with the end of the current budget year on June 30.
After that, school districts that don’t offer full-time, on-campus schooling will face funding cuts — because much of state funding is based on in-seat, in-person attendance.
While the emergency rules could have been — and still could be — extended, that course appears unlikely given the state’s plan to fully reopen on June 15 and the opportunity for all school employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Moreover, state and federal health officials have concluded that schools can be operated safely in most circumstances regardless of whether employees are vaccinated. Gov. Gavin Newsom, for one, has stated he expects schools to be open full time in the fall.
In addition, students 12 and older also can be vaccinated, which could prove key to getting many families to take advantage of their option to return to campus. (Families also will have the option to remain online.)
L.A. Unified continued to press on the vaccination front Monday, with the official launch of its school-based student campaign for middle and high schools. Campuses that reach a 30% vaccination threshold will win $5,000 to spend as they choose, Beutner announced.
He’s especially concerned about lagging adult and student vaccine rates in lower-income communities.
In West L.A., for example, with a median income over $100,000, the vaccination rate for those 16 and 17 is 54% and it’s 66% for those 18 and older, according to data released Monday by the school district. In South Los Angeles/Watts, with a median income of about $40,000, the vaccination rate for those 16 and 17 is 20% and it’s 40% for those 18 and older.
