LOS ANGELES—Los Angeles County elementary schools will able to resume in-person instruction as early as this week thanks to dropping coronavirus rates, with a formal announcement expected Feb. 16, but Los Angeles Unified campuses will likely remain closed as the teachers’ union demands vaccinations before returning.
In-person instruction has been unavailable to the vast majority of the roughly 1.5 million students in public and private schools countywide since March 2020, but the state permits elementary schools to reopen as soon as counties reach an adjusted average new daily case rate of 25 per 100,000 residents. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, the county will reach that milestone Feb. 16 when the state releases its weekly update of case rates for counties statewide.
The news means that schools could be permitted to offer in-class instruction for students in grades TK-6. All schools wishing to reopen must submit plans to the county Department of Public Health and the California Department of Public Health certifying that they have implemented a full range of safety measures to permit a safe reopening.
Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer was expected to release additional information about Los Angeles County’s school reopening threshold and safety requirements at a news briefing scheduled for 2 p.m. Feb. 16.
The department on Feb. 15 issued a statement saying, “This is an encouraging milestone and we look forward to continuing to work with all stakeholders to ensure safety for students, teachers and staff returning to schools.”
County Supervisor Janice Hahn celebrated the announcement, writing in a Twitter post: “L.A. County has officially reached the state’s threshold for reopening elementary schools. Starting tomorrow [Feb. 16], schools can reopen for grades K-6 if they have a waiver or submitted their COVID Safety Plans in advance...
“This is what we have been working towards,” she said. “Thank you to everyone who has worn your masks and kept your distance. Case rates in L.A. County are dropping. Now we can continue the work getting our kids and teachers safely back in classrooms where they belong.”
But for Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system, classrooms are not expected to open immediately, with the United Teachers Los Angeles union insisting that teachers and staff be vaccinated prior to returning to in-person instruction. In a statement issued last week, the union insisted that no in-person instruction should resume until the average new case rate drops to seven per 100,000 residents—a level that would allow the county to emerge from the most restrictive “purple” tier of the state’s economic reopening roadmap.
While L.A. educators want nothing more than to be back in classrooms, the risk of community transmission of COVID-19 in Los Angeles County is still too high,” according to the union. “UTLA remains committed to the health and safety of our students and our communities.”
The union stressed that any plan for reopening schools must include “vaccines for all educators and school staff.”
The county is expected to make vaccinations available to teachers in about two to three weeks. But even when it does, the limited supply of vaccines means it will take weeks or even months to fully vaccinate all teachers.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued school-reopening guidelines last week, stressing that vaccinations for teachers should not be a pre-requisite for in-person learning to resume. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has proposed a $6.6 billion plan for reopening campuses and providing funding for safety protocols on campuses, has also said schools can reopen before students return to in-person classes.
LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner has supported the union in its call for vaccinations. He said Feb. 15 that beyond that issue, the district has done its part in comprehensively ensuring that every campus is safe and ready to welcome back students.
It has retrofitted 80 million square feet of school buildings to make sure air is properly filtered, cleaned and sanitized every room in every school, and reconfigured classrooms and facilities to maintain social distance, he said.
The district is also providing masks and personal protective equipment, and creating a school-based COVID-19 testing and contact tracing program.
Beutner and other officials and union leaders from several of the state’s largest school districts have previously balked at the governor’s reopening plan for schools, claiming it falls short on funding for urban school districts. Ferrer is expected to speak at the LAUSD Board of Education meeting about the school-reopening issue Feb. 16.
Beutner announced Feb. 15 that the LAUSD’s first school-based COVID-19 vaccination center would open Feb. 16 at Roybal Learning Center at 1200 Colton St. near downtown Los Angeles. Moderna vaccines will be administered by LAUSD school nurses and other licensed health care professionals.
Debra Duardo, Los Angeles County Superintendent of Schools, issued a statement Feb. 16 saying, in part, ``I welcome the encouraging news that Los Angeles County has reached the threshold in COVID-19 case rates to allow our elementary schools to reopen for in-person instruction.
“…The Los Angeles County Office of Education remains committed to guiding and supporting our 80 districts in addressing the impact of COVID-19 in the second half of the school year and beyond. This includes identifying interventions to address learning loss and working with districts to develop protocols to safely celebrate the class of 2021, including options for commencement ceremonies this spring.
Ben Drati, superintendent of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, issued a statement Monday saying the district had reached a tentative agreement with its teachers’ union regarding a return to in-person classes, but it is also dependent on vaccines—meaning campuses will likely remain closed until at least mid- to late-March.
According to the tentative agreement, which still needs to be ratified by the union, “vaccines must be available to teachers and campus staff for a period of 15 days prior to students returning.”
California health officials recently released an interactive map that allows Angelenos and others across the state to track the status of campus reopenings.
The Safe Schools Reopening Map provides data on the status of reopening and safety planning for school districts, charter and private schools in Los Angeles and across California. Officials said they hope it will help communities and school staff evaluate their own reopening plans.
Schools will update their information every two weeks on the map, and the California Department of Public Health will add data on reported outbreaks in each school district and information about COVID-19 testing.
The map was created through a partnership between the state, county office of education and the California Collaborative in Education Excellence.
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