WILMINGTON, Calif. — Tuesday marks the first day of school for nearly 70,000 students across Los Angeles County.
What You Need To Know
- LAUSD will begin by testing teachers and staff who are currently working on-site in schools
- Testing will then move to all staff and students over a period of weeks to establish a baseline
- Research giants like UCLA, Stanford and John Hopkins will study the findings to provide insight to other districts
- Program will offer LAUSD a scientifically-backed confidence builder leading up to the day campuses are able to reopen
Not one of them will be in the classroom, instead students will begin the school year online remotely.
Alicia Baltazar, whose son Jeremy is in the 5th grade at Fries Elementary School in Wilmington, spent Monday gearing up for a return to remote learning.
“It’s gonna be a rough morning for myself," she said with a laugh. "But I’m going to do everything I can to be quiet and be as much available to him.”
Baltazar has been busy over the last few weeks getting Jeremy's learning space prepped and ready for "Back to School" week — confident that at home is where her son should be learning this fall.
“Right now, the only safe place is at home online learning," she said.
On Monday, Los Angeles Unified School District's superintendent Austin Beutner announced a new district-backed program that aims to carve a path back to in-person learning.
The massive undertaking includes COVID-19 testing and contact tracing for about half a million students and 75,000 staff members.
“Extraordinary circumstances for extraordinary actions," Beutner said Monday. "And while this testing and contact tracing effort is unprecedented, it’s necessary and appropriate.”
The district is still fine-tuning the operational logistics of the program, but will be assisted by several major research hospitals like Stanford, UCLA, and John Hopkins, as well as companies like Microsoft.
In a statement to Spectrum News 1, UCLA said that by studying the results of the program, their hope is to share findings with other schools and communities looking to reopen.
But not everyone believes this move is a good one. Baltazar has her share of concerns.
“Honestly, I was upset and I thought, why would you do that?" she said. "I think the more we push to testing and pushing to open the schools, I’m afraid we’re going to miss something, that we’re going to rush into it and pay for it dearly later.”
While she says the intention is admirable, Baltazar remains skeptical of how and when it would be carried out.
“Bottom line it comes down to is, we can’t control head lice outbreaks at our school, how are we controlling COVID?”
While she was quick to acknowledge testing and tracing as essential to helping curb the spread of the pandemic, Baltazar doesn't believe they should be testing in schools.
“I just really wish they would focus on how to make this online experience the best it can and stop talking about how to reopen schools when clearly it is not safe to do so.”
To LAUSD's end, their hope is that they continue with a robust online learning program while working to bring students back to classrooms. They will begin by testing staff members electing to work on-site, before moving on to cohorts of students and staff throughout the district.