Schools in Los Angeles, San Diego won't reopen for in-person learning next month

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Schools in California’s two largest districts — Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified — will not reopen for in-person learning when the school year begins next month, they announced Monday, saying that it would not be safe to do so while the coronavirus continues to spread.

Students in those districts will instead continue to learn at home, as they did for the final months of last school year.

“Those countries that have managed to safely reopen schools have done so with declining infection rates and on-demand testing available. California has neither. The skyrocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control,” the two districts said in a joint statement.

L.A. Unified begins the new school year Aug. 18 and San Diego Unified begins on Aug. 31. The districts said they plan to return to in-person learning during the 2020-21 school year, “as soon as public health conditions allow.”

The union representing teachers in L.A. Unified last week also called for school facilities to remain closed at the start of the school year, declaring it would not be safe to open them. A poll of the union’s members found that 83% of them were against reopening school campuses.

The district’s superintendent, Austin Beutner, made clear Monday that he agreed, saying in a televised speech that the “health and safety of all in the school community is not something we can compromise.”

“Reopening schools will significantly increase the interaction between children and adults from different families. A 10 year old student might have a 30 year old teacher, a 50 year old bus driver or live with a 70 year old grandmother. All need to be protected. There’s a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish,” Beutner said.

Given the state of the pandemic, it “will not be enough” to reopen schools by reconfiguring school schedules and encouraging risk mitigation strategies such as washing hands, wearing masks and physical distancing, Beutner said Monday.

Instead, returning to school campuses would also require the district to regularly test students and staff for the coronavirus, Beutner said. And it would be “equally important” for the district to trace individuals who have come into contact with someone who has the virus. But to conduct sufficient testing and contact tracing of nearly 600,000 students, in addition to school staff, would cost money that the district does not currently have, Beutner has said.

Beutner estimated that it would cost about $300 per student over the course of a school year to test every student and staff member each week, and said those dollars “pale in comparison” to the importance of reopening schools.

“The federal government could help by providing the funding schools need to make it safe and appropriate for students and staff to return,” he said.

In the meantime, though, students in Los Angeles will learn exclusively online. The district is currently negotiating with United Teachers Los Angeles, the teachers’ union, over distance learning guidelines for the fall.

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