Melvoin, Gonez Resolutions Address Parent Concerns Over Childcare, Distance Learning

Board Members Nick Melvoin (BD4) and Kelly Gonez (BD6) have resolutions addressing parent concerns about childcare and distance learning.

In response to parent concerns, Board Members Nick Melvoin (BD4) and Kelly Gonez (BD6) have introduced resolutions that will come up for a vote Tuesday. Melvoin’s encourages LAUSD to create public childcare pods on campus for homeless and foster youth and kids of essential workers, while the Gonez resolution seeks to measure the effectiveness of distance learning.

Gonez told Speak UP that the district has done an excellent job offering support to families, but it’s not yet clear whether those supports are “sufficient to make sure every student has their needs met and continues to progress academically at this time. Our ultimate job as board members is to make sure our kids are educated and well taken care of academically, socially and emotionally.”

Likewise, Melvoin told Speak UP that a lack of childcare during distance learning is placing a huge burden on working parents right now. “At every school, when I talk to parents about the issues they are having, this rises to the top of the list,” he said.

Melvoin praised the district for providing childcare on campus to the children of employees that are working on campus this fall. About 3000 kids are expected to have their distance learning supervised on campus starting this week. Some of those employees’ kids, however, do not attend LAUSD schools, and “our core constituency is district students,” Melvoin said. “Can we bring more kids back?” 

His resolution encourages the superintendent to determine the feasibility of expanding the number of kids receiving supervised distance learning on LAUSD campuses, especially vulnerable kids whose parents cannot afford private tutors and learning pods, which are expected to exacerbate existing educational inequities. Several other nearby school districts such as Glendale Unified have already begun offering childcare to vulnerable groups of students on campus. 

Melvoin’s resolution also asks the superintendent to explore whether those supervising the students can also help provide supplemental instruction. If an adult is allowed to be with a small group of kids on campus while they are learning online, “why can’t they also help the kid learn to read?” Melvoin asked. “Can we help them with fractions?”  

Classified employees from the after-school program Beyond the Bell are providing childcare on campus for the kids of LAUSD employees working on campus. One question Melvoin’s resolution raises is why it’s safe for classified employees to be supervising kids on campus, but not teachers. Some critics have suggested that issues of race and class play into the fact that lower-paid classified workers are expected to put themselves at risk providing childcare on campus, while higher-paid teachers can work safely from home. The county and state, however, are making many of the calls related to what schools are allowed to do on campus at the moment. 

Meanwhile, the Gonez resolution addresses concerns that Speak UP parents have been advocating for at board meetings over the last month, namely how LAUSD will determine whether distance learning is working and measure how much progress kids are making. 

Gonez said she wants to “make sure none of our kids fall through the cracks, especially our most vulnerable students.”

A Speak UP parent survey found huge racial and socioeconomic disparities in the amount of live instruction kids received in the spring, and parents want to make sure that distance learning this fall is more effective and equitable. They also want to make sure LAUSD executes a plan to make up for the learning loss suffered this spring, especially given less instructional time with distance learning this fall than in a typical in-person school year. 

While many students faced technical difficulties connecting to their classes for the start of school last week, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner on Monday said that attendance on the first day fo school was within a few percentage points of last year and that 95% of high school students had connected by the end of the week. Merely connecting, however, is not enough, Gonez said.

“I want to continue to capture attendance data on participation and data on connectivity, Gonez said. “Those are the baseline, but ultimately, our responsibility is to make sure that our kids can continue to learn despite what’s going on in the outside world. And unless we’re able to outline how we plan to measure it, then we won’t be able to get a sense of it.”

The Gonez resolution also calls on LAUSD to measure kids’ social-emotional well-being, as well as student and family engagement, potentially through student and parent surveys. Finally, the resolution calls for distance learning to be placed on the board meeting agenda monthly so parents and others have a chance to weigh in regularly and provide feedback to improve distance learning going forward.

“It’s really critical because we know that virtual learning will be relied on either exclusively or in part for the majority of this school year,” Gonez said.

*This story was updated Aug. 25 with comments from Board Member Kelly Gonez