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Kyiah Dangerfield, a senior at Santee Education Complex near Downtown Los Angeles, was hoping to attend an out-of-state university. She was looking forward to her senior year of high school, too, and everything that should mean. “We’re supposed to be having the time of our lives,” she said.

But COVID upended pretty much everything. Now, going away to college feels too risky. She’s also hesitant to leave her mom and sister. So she applied only to local schools. As for the traditional senior rituals (grad night, prom, homecoming, and at Santee, a cookout), “we haven't been doing any of it because of this horrible pandemic,” she said.

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner did recently promise “some form of in-person graduation ceremony” for the class of 2021 if COVID rates continue to decline. But that’s of little comfort to Dangerfield. “I am feeling so boxed in,” she said. “I wish we could go back to the old days.”

Across LAUSD, there are thousands of stories like Dangerfield’s. It’s a rough year to be a high school senior.

“Educationally, I don’t think I’m learning nearly as much,” said Emma Bartholomew, a senior in the Humanities Magnet at Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda.

“Now it feels like we’re on break, but break with homework,” said Ngan Lam, a senior at Alliance Susan & Eric Smidt Technology High School in Lincoln Heights.

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner announced Wednesday that he will step down at the end of the school year, saying, "I believe that it is fitting that a new superintendent should have the privilege of welcoming students back to school in the fall. I respectfully request that my contract end as planned on June 30. In the meantime, I will remain focused on the task of ensuring that schools reopen in the safest way possible while helping in a seamless leadership transition." Deputy Superintendent Megan K. Reilly will be named acting superintendent while a search is conducted.

Speak UP Parents shared their thoughts on Beutner’s leadership during turbulent times, his decision to leave and what they would like to see in the next head of the nation’s second-largest school district.