District officials throughout Los Angeles County offered up a mixture of guarded optimism and skepticism on Thursday, Jan. 28, in response to the idea that elementary schools may start to reopen in a few weeks if COVID-19 cases continue falling at its current pace.
Despite remarks by county Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer one day earlier that elementary classrooms could begin reopening within a month if everyone does their part to ensure coronavirus transmission rates keep dropping, the question remains whether schools will actually be ready — or willing — to welcome students back.
Under the state’s Safe Schools for All reopening proposal, schools in counties with a seven-day average of 25 or fewer new coronavirus cases per 100,000 residents can reopen in mid-February, first to students in transitional kindergarten through the second grade and those most disproportionately impacted by distance learning, then up through grade six over time. Schools can’t reopen for grades 7 through 12 until the county’s case rate drops to 7 per 100,000 residents or lower.
The county’s case rate was 48 out of 100,000 people on Wednesday.
“We are encouraged by the declining case rate. We hope the decline continues so we can reach the state’s threshold to be eligible to reopen,” L.A. County schools Superintendent Debra Duardo said in an email.
It remains to be seen how quickly districts will embrace reopening, though.
Factors to consider range from whether schools will have all their safety measures in place to whether there will be a willingness on the part of families or school staff to return to in-person instruction.
In Los Angeles Unified, the largest K-12 system in the county and state, district officials have yet to reach an agreement with the local teachers union on terms for a general return to campus.
Superintendent Austin Beutner said the district had long ago prepared for the eventual return to campus by implementing safety measures such as replacing air filtration systems, installing hand sanitizing stations and reconfiguring classrooms so students are adequately spaced apart. But beyond such safety measures, he said schools cannot reopen until the community’s COVID transmission rate is significantly reduced and school staff are vaccinated.
“We do all three (things), we’ll be ready. Now let’s have a candid conversation about how soon all three can be done,” he said.
“Families have to believe schools are as safe as possible to be willing to have their children come back,” he continued.
United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing teachers in LAUSD, issued a strong rebuke of state and county officials on Thursday, saying they “failed” to protect the community by lifting stay-at-home orders just as more easily transmissible variants of the coronavirus course their way through the county.
“The state’s inability to stay the course on necessary, life-saving choices once again disregards our communities and people of color who have been risking their lives and dying at disproportionate rates in LA County and across the state,” UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in the statement.
UTLA agrees with the California Teachers Association that no school or district should reopen while the county it’s located in remains in the state’s most restrictive, purple tier — which signifies that the coronavirus is widespread there — and faulted the county’s Board of Supervisors for allowing businesses like gyms and malls to operate in December as COVID cases surged and hospitals’ intensive-care unit capacity remained at zero percent.
“We need to stop asking ‘Is it safe to open schools yet?’ and start asking of our county and state officials: ‘What are you willing to do to make schools safe to reopen?’“ Myart-Cruz said.
Ross Novie, a parent of two LAUSD high school students in West LA who started the LA School Uprising campaign to advocate for campus reopenings, said everyone from Gov. Gavin Newsom down to LAUSD’s superintendent and UTLA share in the blame for schools never having reopened since last March. If other nations and states have found a way to reopen schools safely, he said, LAUSD should be able to as well.
While understandable that not every student or teacher will want to return to campus, he said, that is not the case for everyone. He noted the mental and emotional toll that not being in school with their peers has had on students.
“We can craft a sensible opening policy,” he said. “We don’t just need to shut everything down. That’s just a panic move.”
Elsewhere in LA County, school officials offered mixed reactions to the idea of potentially reopening schools in a matter of weeks.
Superintendent Maribel Garcia of the El Monte City School District expects to reopen schools incrementally but feels prepared, given that the district has been running learning pods for K-8 students whose parents are essential workers or employees of the district. About 400 students have been on campuses daily, providing the district with a preview of how students can return safely.
“We have not closed even during the surge,” Garcia said. “We find the Department of Public Health guidelines work. If you adhere to them, you can remain safe. Having these extended learning pods have really prepared us.”
Dan Stepenosky, schools chief for the Las Virgenes Unified School District in Calabasas, welcomed the news of potentially more students returning to campus. The district has been offering in-person instruction to students in TK-3, saying the reopening has “gone perfectly.”
“No spread on campus at all and that’s with 20% community (COVID testing) positivity (rate),” he said in an email, adding that schools are structured, safe places.
Other districts, though, feel they need more time to plan for a proper reopening.
“We must weigh the disruption … of transitioning mid-semester to another learning model and consider the potential for whipsawing students between opening and closing schools as increased cases and variants emerge,” said Denise R. Jaramillo, superintendent at Alhambra Unified.
Considerations such as whether there is sufficient staff to provide in-person teaching and support to students, local health conditions and how to provide ongoing COVID tests as required by the state must be addressed first, she said.
The district also must determine how many families plan to send their children back for hybrid learning, how many students will need transportation, the number of school bus routes and drivers needed, and reorganize lunch service plans, Jaramillo said.
“If possible we want to get our teachers and staff vaccinated first and we are working on a plan to do that,” she added.
Most Whittier-area superintendents expressed cautious optimism that elementary schools could start to reopen in two to four weeks.
“We are optimistically cautious because we’ve been at this since last March and have heard this kind of roller coaster where it could (happen) and then we do all the work,” said Lowell Joint School District Superintendent Jim Coombs. But then, he said, “something happens and it changes.”
Still, Coombs said his district is ready to return to in-person instruction and has told families to be ready to return by March 1.
In the East Whittier City School District, where all 11 elementary schools can already provide in-person instruction to TK-2 students as part of the county’s waiver program, Superintendent Marc Patterson said he plans to talk to the school board at its Feb. 8 meeting about reopening no earlier than March 1 for other grade levels. If they do, the plan will be to reopen one grade a week, giving students a chance to acclimate to campus.
Other districts are taking a more cautious approach.
Gary Gonzales, South Whittier School District superintendent, said the county’s announcement “to a certain degree excites me, but we want to make sure we return to a safe environment.”
The good news is the numbers are going down, and the district is working to get its plans in place, he said.
Whittier City School District Superintendent Maria Martinez-Poulin said the district will proceed with caution, “making sure our communities feel comfortable.”
“We are not going to rush into anything,” she said. “We want to make sure we’re safe.”
Staff writers Tarek Fattal, Tim Haddock, Robert Morales and Michael Sprague contributed to this article.