Amid National Conversation About the Need to Safely Reopen Schools, LAUSD Closes Campuses for Tutoring and Special Ed Services Until 2021

Carla Suárez-Capdet was thrilled to see her son finally return to campus for in-person services last week, and she wonders why private schools with waivers remain open while L.A. closes the doors to her son.

As COVID-19 cases surge in Los Angeles, Los Angeles Unified School District is shutting its doors to the handful of high-needs kids that it had begun to welcome back to campus for after-school tutoring and special education services, as well as for athletic conditioning and childcare for employees’ kids. Campuses will close this Thursday at least until January.

The implications will be minimal for most of LAUSD’s 650,000 students because a mere 3,000-4,000 of the district’s 650,000 students were receiving any services on campus as of this week, and none of them were getting regular in-person instruction. The LAUSD school day has been entirely online since March.

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health started allowing L.A. schools to serve 25% of high-needs students on campus for instruction in mid-September, but United Teachers Los Angeles never agreed to allow its teachers to do so. All after-school services offered to students on campus have been provided by individual teachers and service providers willing to volunteer for this extra paid work.

Carla Suárez-Capdet has a child in kindergarten with autism, and after weeks of advocating, she finally got her son’s special education teacher and his occupational therapist to agree to help him on campus in the San Fernando Valley after school last week. “It was amazing,” she said. “He was so excited.” 

While she understands the reasons for the latest shutdown, she questions why private schools with TK-2 waivers still have campuses open as usual. (Governor Gavin Newsom and the L.A. Health Department are allowing schools to remain open during the latest round of closures). “If it’s truly a public health issue, everyone should be sent home. If it’s not that bad, let my son continue to get what he needs.”

More than a third of the parents surveyed by LAUSD told the district they want to return next semester for hybrid instruction, despite taking the survey in the midst of the latest surge. “To put that in some context,” Beutner said in his weekly address, “those students alone would represent the seventh largest school district in the country.”  

Beutner said he hopes schools will reopen for hybrid instruction before summer, but COVID case numbers must come down first, and state and local reopening priorities must change when they do. “Schools must come first, not last,” Beutner said. “Time away from teachers, friends and the structure of a classroom is harming children.”

LAUSD’s decision to completely shutter campuses comes at a time when the national conversation about the ability and need for schools to reopen safely has shifted significantly. After facing a widespread backlash from parents to its decision to close schools before Thanksgiving, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio reversed himself last week and decided to reopen elementary schools. 

Then last week, President-elect Joe Biden, his Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten all endorsed the safe reopening of schools. 

“We can safely open those elementary schools,” Biden said, and “we can make it safe for teachers if we invest in what needs to be done” like new sanitizing procedures, upgraded ventilation and smaller classes -- all steps LAUSD has taken. 

“Close the bars and keep the schools open,” Fauci said last week. “The default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school or get them back to school.”   

“No one likes what’s going on,” Weingarten said during an MSNBC interview. “We’ve learned that if you have the safeguards, like in New York City, schools themselves are not going to be super-spreading events. If we can get the virus under control, we should be prioritizing opening schools for the second semester. Remote education for most kids and, frankly for most instruction, does not work, and we really need to have in-school learning again.”

Beutner explained that his decision to move in the opposite direction was in response to “dangerous levels of COVID” in Los Angeles. “We can’t assume schools can be reopened irrespective of the levels of COVID,” he said. “That would be irresponsible. That would be dangerous, and we’re not going to do that.”

Beutner also described the decision to close campuses now as “a half step backward in hopes of five steps forward come next semester.”   

Beutner is calling for a “Marshall Plan for schools” that includes a relief package not only for schools but also for businesses that he says should remain closed until schools are able to reopen.  

“We want schools open as soon as possible as safely as possible,” Beutner said. “That means making schools a priority. That means, perhaps, closing card rooms. It means looking at different types of businesses and looking at whether they can remain in a reduced posture while schools reopen.”

Beutner said teachers should also be prioritized to receive the COVID vaccine quickly and that LAUSD is close to finalizing an agreement with UTLA to improve distance learning next semester, which will remain a part of instruction even after campuses reopen for hybrid in-person learning. All families will have the option to keep their kids learning online for the entire 2020-2021 school year.

Speak UP is completing its parent survey on reopening and the impact of distance learning Tuesday and will release detailed results later this week. Preliminary results show a large majority of parents say their children are suffering from depression and other social-emotional issues during campus closures. They’re also reporting widespread concerns about learning loss.

“We understand the extraordinary moment we are in and the need to take every precaution to bring COVID case numbers down,” said Speak UP Founder and CEO Katie Braude. “We applaud the governor and mayor for the recent Safer-At-Home orders, but we sincerely hope to see a shift in reopening priorities once we turn the corner next year. Our kids have been put last for way too long, and they are suffering. We have a full-blown mental health and academic crisis on our hands.”

Braude said she agreed with Fauci that reopening schools and keeping them open should be a top priority and should be done as soon as is safely possible. “Teachers need to be at the front line for vaccinations after healthcare workers and nursing home patients,” Braude said. “LAUSD should explore outdoor learning next semester to the maximum extent possible. And LAUSD needs to expand after-school tutoring to make it universally available to all students.”