Keesha Hollier, a parent of two LAUSD kids, ages 10 and 13, has spent the last month worrying about how she will oversee their distance learning while working full-time once school starts Tuesday.

“Both of my kids have autism, both attend special day classes and need one-on-one attention,” said the Carson-based nurse and single mom, who does not have the freedom to step away from her computer while on the clock, even though she works from home. “How am I going to log them both on, keep both of them occupied and supervise both of them while working?”

Hollier was really hoping that LAUSD would require teachers to record their live lessons so that she could help them with their schoolwork after her workday was done. She shared her concerns with the principal, who told her to “work it out with your teacher,” Hollier said. “They were rolling out something without asking the parents, ‘Is this going to work?’”

After talking to her kids’ teachers at Leapwood Avenue Elementary and Carson High School, though, she believes schools will be realistic that not all kids with special needs can “sit on a computer for that length of time,” and she hopes they will give kids like hers “some leeway.”

Meanwhile, as parents scramble to prepare for the first-ever all-virtual start to the school year, LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner unveiled an ambitious program to provide COVID-19 testing and contract tracing for all LAUSD students, staff and family members that may make it possible to safely reopen schools sooner rather than later.

The LAUSD Board unanimously passed a new distance learning agreement Tuesday that creates more consistent schedules and sets minimum standards for live online instruction this fall. The board also voted 4-3 to pass new rules governing charter schools that will limit parent choices but also will likely lead to an increase in the number of existing charter schools sharing space on LAUSD campuses.

Parents were not entirely satisfied with either outcome, although there was one surprise win for parents who last fall had pushed the district to release student growth data for all schools. Board Member Nick Melvoin (BD4) managed to pass an amendment to charter renewal rules that will add student growth data for charter schools to LAUSD’s existing student growth database so parents can easily compare which schools are helping kids make the most progress in a given year.

A vote on the distance learning agreement struck between LAUSD and UTLA was largely a formality, given that schools start next week, and LAUSD has already begun implementing the plan. While the vote was unanimous, parents, as well as Melvoin and Board Member Kelly Gonez (BD6) expressed concerns that the new agreement is inadequate for high school students trying to prepare for college and does not specify how LAUSD will monitor whether the new plan is working, especially for its most vulnerable students: English Learners, kids with special needs, homeless and foster youth.

"While this deal is a distinct improvement over the disastrous spring agreement, we continue to be extremely concerned about the number of hours of instruction, especially for middle and high school students,” said Speak UP Founder and CEO Katie Braude. “This does not solve the problem of the learning loss faced in the spring. Without serious interventions, our most vulnerable kids may never recover. It's unfortunate that the board did not discuss this sooner and bring parents into the conversation."

Despite the fact that the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education has failed to schedule a single public board meeting to allow parents and the public to weigh in on distance learning plans this fall, Speak UP parents showed up at Tuesday’s board meeting and fought for time to share their concerns.

“While we are happy this new agreement creates more consistent bell schedules and sets stronger standards for live online instruction this fall, it’s not enough to address the learning loss this spring suffered by secondary students like mine,” said Speak UP’s Sharnell Blevins, a parent at Hamilton High, who had to scramble for a speaking slot Tuesday after the board allotted no time for in-person public comment and no time on the agenda for the public to discuss the superintendent’s report on distance learning plans. “Most secondary parents wanted at least three hours of live online learning, and this agreement doesn't get us there.”

The board won’t vote on the new agreement between UTLA and LAUSD until next Tuesday, less than a week before school is set to begin, likely too late to head back to the negotiating table to make improvements.

Parents were excluded from those talks and upset that the plan was presented as a fait accompli without any public input. “Parents should not have to be shouting from outside the room when it comes to educating our children,” Blevins said. “Distance learning relies on parents to succeed while our kids are learning from home, in our living rooms. Parents should be at the decision-making table.”

In response to parent concerns that distance learning was uneven and inequitable this spring, LAUSD set stronger minimum standards Monday for more consistent live online learning this fall. The required amount of live instruction, however, fell short of the expectations of some parents, especially those with kids in middle and high school.

“We are pleased that some of the parent recommendations were addressed, but are deeply concerned that kids are still being denied an adequate amount of live instructional time, especially given the extent of lost learning that resulted from the inequitable situation in the spring,” said Speak UP Founder and CEO Katie Braude. “Many parents want more for their kids.”

Students will have a more consistent school day from 9 a.m. to 2:15 p.m. this fall with bell schedules set by school principals and both whole-class and small-group instruction. Online learning will feature a mixture of daily live interaction with teachers and peers, as well as asynchronous learning that includes students working independently and watching pre-recorded lessons or using online apps.

The amount of live online teaching required will increase by grade level from 45 minutes a day for preschool learners to 90 minutes a day for kindergarteners and nearly three hours for secondary students. Sample schedules by grade level can be found here. Mondays are classified as student support days and will feature less live instruction. The tentative agreement, which goes to the school board Tuesday, will be in effect until the end of December.

Maryam Qudrat, a parent at Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks who started an online petition signed by thousands of parents to require far more live instruction, was disappointed with the results, which she said would cause marginalized students to suffer “irreparable education losses” by giving them “far less instructional time than they deserve with no teacher evaluation to hold teachers accountable to students.”

“Our education leaders just let down our most vulnerable kids, and this is a historic moment they should be ashamed of,” she added.

Schools will open online only when classes begin on Aug. 18. Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner announced Monday that campuses will not physically reopen when the new school year starts, and a robust system of COVID-19 testing and contact tracing will need to be in place before schools can safely do so.

San Diego Unified made the same decision today, meaning that most of Southern California will have an all-virtual start to the school year amid a surge in coronavirus cases and concerns that asymptomatic carriers could spread the virus to students, staff and their families.

“There’s a public health imperative to keep schools from becoming a petri dish,” Beutner said. “The virus is more contagious than first thought, and there is asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic spread.”

The decision by the nation’s second-largest school district comes days after United Teachers Los Angeles announced that teachers oppose the physical reopening of campuses. It’s unclear whether LAUSD’s decision will prevent independent charter schools that share LAUSD campuses from reopening, although it’s likely that most charters would follow LAUSD’s lead, given the current state of the pandemic.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health also was expected to issue new guidelines for schools reopening on Monday, which include required masks and social distancing, and no team sports that don’t allow for physical distancing, according to the Los Angeles Times.

LAUSD’s decision to reopen online only this fall also comes amid a backdrop of threats by President Trump and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos to withhold federal funding from schools unless they reopen full time to all students this fall. Most education funding comes from the state, and it’s unclear whether Trump actually has the authority to follow through on this threat. Congressional Democrats pushed back over the weekend, and Beutner also referenced the pressure in his remarks.

“Federal officials have recently suggested students need to be in school and, like a Nike ad, told educators ‘Just do it,’” Beutner said. “We all know the best place for students to learn is in a school setting. While Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz might have said, ‘Tap your heels together three times and say ‘There’s no place like home’ and you’ll be there, actually returning to schools is not so simple.”

Beutner said that widespread testing of students and staff, as well as contract tracing, are needed to safely reopen schools, and that will cost money. In LAUSD, it will cost about $300 per student per year to test all students and staff weekly, as well as family members of those who have tested positive. He put a total price tag of testing all public-school students and teachers across America at $15 billion and called on the federal government to provide the funding.

Richard Vladovic (BD7), reelected Tuesday to his post as LAUSD Board President for his final six months in office, said he wants to focus the board’s energy on steering LAUSD through the “troubling waters” of the pandemic by focusing on improving instruction and services for vulnerable kids such as those with special needs this fall, even if school remains online only, which is looking increasingly likely.

“My main goal in the next six months is to respond to some of the parents as they talk about the delivery of instruction. I believe we need to do something about it,” said Vladovic, who was reelected in a 6-1 vote by fellow board members, with Nick Melvoin (BD4) casting the lone dissenting vote. “We’ve got some real challenges ahead of us.”

Challenge No. 1 is whether and how to reopen campuses when school resumes Aug. 18, and what learning will look like with kids expected to do distance learning again, either part-time or full-time this fall. If campuses do reopen, LAUSD is expected to have a hybrid model that keeps only half of the students on campus at once to allow for social distancing.

The recent surge in coronavirus cases, however, has reduced the chances of campuses reopening in mid-August, according to the Los Angeles Times, which reported Wednesday that county health officials are privately telling superintendents to prepare for an all-virtual start to the school year unless things change.

LA School Police Department Chief Todd Chamberlain resigned from his post one day after the LAUSD Board voted 4-3 to cut $25 million or 35% from the LA School Police Department budget and to redirect that money toward counselors, campus safety aides and social workers at schools with a high concentration of Black students.

Deputy Chief Leslie Ramirez was named interim chief on Thursday.

Activists from Black Lives Matter and Students Deserve pressed their case again during hours of testimony at the board meeting Tuesday, one week after the board failed to agree on any of three school police resolutions considered. Black students described being traumatized by the presence of armed police in schools and having their actions criminalized when what they really needed was more help and support.

Defenders of school police praised their role in mentoring students and also evoked the specter of violent crime that they warned would go unchecked without their help.

After nearly 12 hours of passionate debate and activism, a divided LAUSD Board failed to pass any of the three competing resolutions to study, reform or defund school police.

Hundreds of activists from Inner City Struggle, Black Lives Matter, Community Coalition and Students Deserve flooded the phone lines and held a rally outside LAUSD headquarters to urge passage of a resolution from Board Member Monica Garcia (BD2) to defund the school police by incrementally cutting 90% of its budget by 2024. Those funds would instead go to the highest-needs schools.

Board Member George McKenna (BD1), the lone Black member and one of the board’s strongest defenders of school police, had a rival resolution calling on the existing District School Safety Task Force to review and study data on school police and report back on any recommended changes by the end of August.

Jackie Goldberg’s reform resolution was seen as a middle-ground measure to implement a school police hiring freeze, eliminate police uniforms, station officers outside instead of inside schools, end the use of pepper spray and create a committee to reimagine school safety and examine whether school police should carry guns or even exist at all.

For several hours, students, parents and educators testified that the presence of school police was traumatizing and made them feel less safe, especially in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by police. Some compared school police to a “virus” and even the KKK. Garcia’s resolution to defund the department was supported by leaders of two employee unions, United Teachers Los Angeles and SEIU, as well as the California Charter Schools Association.

The "license to kill" impacts child development, Garcia argued, and “no other job in our system has a gun."

Supporters of school police, however, also had a strong presence at the board meeting. Many school counselors talked about officers helping prevent student suicides and averting threats of mass violence. A mom whose child was shot in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary lauded the LA School Police as a model of community policing. And officers, who have no affiliation with the LAPD, discussed how they had stopped sword- and knife-wielding campus invaders and claimed it was no accident there have been no mass shootings in LAUSD schools. The union representing school principals and several other employee unions opposed Garcia’s resolution and supported McKenna’s.

Parents from across the district spoke up at Tuesday’s LAUSD Board meeting asking to be included in the decision-making process for schools reopening and for teachers to be required to provide live online instruction this fall on all days when kids are learning at home.

“We had no input into the terms of distance learning this spring, and it was difficult for parents to manage,” said Speak UP Parent Engagement Coordinator Sharnell Blevins, who has six kids, including three attending LAUSD’s Hamilton High school. “Kids didn’t receive the education they deserved.”

Blevins was one of five Speak UP parent leaders who addressed the board and made recommendations for reopening this fall that were developed during Speak UP’s recent Parent Leadership Advisory Network meeting.

Stanley Harris, an educator and parent at Clover Elementary, spoke on behalf of Speak UP’s African American Parent Advocacy Team. “All kids deserve to receive a quality education, and that’s not happening across the board in L.A.,” he said. “Many Black kids have had minimal contact or instruction from teachers for the past three months.”

In addition to Speak UP, a group of parents from Millikan Middle school in Sherman Oaks presented a petition to the board with more than 900 signatures calling on LAUSD to require regular live online instruction this fall.

“The reality is that my child receives one hour or less of face-to-face online instruction each day with zero on Fridays, when state law requires 377 minutes of daily instruction for his grade,” said Maryam Qudrat, a single mom and educator who has been teaching all of her own Cal State Long Beach classes online while her Millikan 6th grader learns at home. “The net effect to our kids has been quite shocking.”

After campuses closed in mid-March because of COVID-19, UTLA negotiated a side letter agreement with the district that was never discussed in public or voted on by the school board. That agreement, which expires June 30, gave teachers the freedom to work only four hours a day on average, including faculty meetings, planning, grading, professional development and office hours. It stipulated that teachers could not be required to teach live classes online or follow a regular bell schedule to avoid class conflicts in secondary schools.

While members of the Los Angeles Board of Education and the superintendent participated remotely via Zoom in Tuesday’s first LAUSD board meeting since campuses closed, parents were required to show up in person at LAUSD headquarters to make live public comments during the meeting.

More than 250 parents signed an open letter posted by Speak UP on Friday calling on LAUSD to allow live remote public comment from home. The letter called it “unacceptable” to expect parents to pull their kids away from their home studies while campuses are closed and take them downtown during Safer-at-Home orders in order to make their voices heard. Even parents with kids old enough to stay home alone bristled at the requirement.

“Surely, there is a way for LAUSD to allow parents to participate without forcing us to risk our safety and that of our kids by congregating at LAUSD headquarters,” said the letter.

“I’m enraged about this,” said parent Martha Haight, who signed the letter. “If you really want people to make public comment during this pandemic, you invite them into the Zoom meeting. The board members are at home safe and comfortable, and we have to put our lives and the lives of our children at risk because we don’t have anybody else to watch them? I think it goes against California’s rules and laws that are meant to keep people home and safe. As a parent, I see it as a way of suppressing free speech.”

LAUSD promised that safety measures such as social distancing would be in place, and while only a handful of speakers showed up to make public comment, several of them pulled their masks down to their chins when they spoke and failed to keep six feet apart from the interpreter, potentially endangering public health.

State education funding cuts proposed by the governor will make it impossible for Los Angeles Unified School District to safely reopen campuses this fall, Superintendent Austin Beutner and his Deputy Superintendent Megan Reilly said Tuesday at LAUSD’s first board meeting since schools closed in March.

“The notion that schools can continue to operate safely in the fall with a decreased state budget is not realistic,” said Reilly, who oversees business services and operations. “We cannot in good conscience risk the safety of our students and staff by returning to the classroom prematurely and without the funding for the necessary precautions, given the continued lack of a national testing program and lack of a clear understanding of the impact of coronavirus on young people.”

LAUSD is facing a potential $500 million revenue shortfall just as it is spending more to respond to the coronavirus crisis. LAUSD has provided 20 million meals to both adults and kids in the city, is offering free summer school to all LAUSD kids to make up for lost learning time, has distributed digital devices and Wi-Fi hotspots to every child who needs them and trained teachers in distance learning.

Proposed funding cuts will not only make it difficult to balance its budget next year and the year after but will complicate efforts to reopen school campuses this fall.

“Any return to school will cost more,” Beutner said, because LAUSD will need personal protective equipment for students and staff and funding to sanitize campuses and confront the mental health trauma students have faced and tremendous learning loss, especially for vulnerable kids such as English Learners, students with disabilities and young kids who have a harder time with distance learning.

“We’re not paving roads,” Beutner said. “We are giving children the best opportunity they have for a good life, to escape poverty…I believe the risk for the potential harm to students from lost learning is as great as the risk they face from coronavirus.”

While LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner says that every student that needs a digital device for remote learning now has one, LAUSD’s survey of parents in East L.A., Southeast L.A. and Boyle Heights provides a far murkier picture.

Only 48% of the roughly 7,200 families who completed all or part of the survey say they are very confident they have the devices, Wi-Fi and “technological know-how” needed for their children to participate in remote learning.

Some of the discrepancy can be attributed to the issue of the #TechKnowledge divide, which Speak UP is addressing through our iFamily program by giving parents free tech training to get their kids into the virtual classroom.

Nearly half of parents (47%) gave themselves a C (28%), D (8%) or F (11%) grade when it came to their level of knowledge about technology, and 64% say it would be very helpful to receive technical assistance to get their kids set up for remote learning.

"Mainly we need to learn how to use a computer to learn to support our children,” LAUSD parent Alma Villanueva told Austin Beutner in an interview broadcast during his weekly address.

Inadequate devices and Wi-Fi remain huge issues for families, as well as their access to teachers. A full 26% of survey respondents said they don’t have a computer or tablet or enough digital devices at home, calling into question LAUSD’s claim that nearly every family now has the devices they need.

About 54% of parents said their main access to the Internet was on a smartphone, and while the survey question did not address whether their kids were also using smartphones to learn, Speak UP iTutors volunteers are tutoring some LAUSD kids whose only learning device is a smartphone.

Despite promises from companies to provide free Internet services to families, 48% of parents say they don’t have reliable high-speed Internet access at home, and 18% “don’t know how to use the remote/distance learning software.”

Notably, the biggest concern of parents right now is ensuring that their kids don’t fall behind academically, with a full 78% saying they are very concerned. Also 60% say they are very concerned about their kids being on track to graduate. The number of parents with academic concerns outweighs the 57% who said they were very concerned about being able to provide financially for their kids while schools are closed.

Sharnell Blevins, Speak UP’s parent engagement coordinator in South L.A., has six kids currently homeschooling during the COVID-19 crisis, including three who attend LAUSD’s Hamilton High, taking seven classes each. During the first three weeks of campus closures, all three of her kids at Hamilton had multiple teachers schedule live online lessons that met simultaneously, forcing them to choose which of their classes to attend.

“It was frustrating and confusing,” Blevins said.

Fortunately, the administration realized the problem and asked the faculty to come together to create a schedule that avoids such conflicts, starting next Monday, after Spring break. “You need leadership to set certain things like that,” Blevins said. “Otherwise, they’re setting kids up for failure.”

The United Teachers Los Angeles union, however, negotiated an agreement on distance learning announced Thursday that allows teachers to set their own flexible work hours, as long as their schedules are shared and consistent. Teachers will receive full pay but will be required to work an average of just four hours a day, spread however they want throughout the week. That means principals won’t be allowed to direct teachers to keep to a bell schedule that avoids class conflicts for middle and high school students.

“My concern is that this is giving the teachers the ability to push back at the admin that has decided on an organized schedule,” Blevins said. “It harms students in the long run. The kids need to be able to attend all their classes.”

Teacher Hebert Marquez at Maywood Center for Enriched Studies, a 6-12th grade LAUSD magnet school in Southeast L.A., said MaCES teachers originally set their own schedules, too, but immediately saw the stress it was creating for students. When the principal asked teachers to follow the bell schedule when holding live online classes, all the teachers agreed.

“I think it will be chaos if teachers are all over the place,” Marquez said. “I went into teaching for my students, and I’m going to continue teaching for my students…As adults, as teachers, we have to lead.”

Unfortunately, not every L.A. student is benefitting equally from such leadership. After three weeks of distance learning, vast inequities are emerging. Student experiences vary not only school by school but, in some cases, class by class, depending on their teacher’s personal comfort with teaching online from home.

United Teachers Los Angeles called for a ban on all new charter schools and co-locations, as well as the eviction of existing charter teachers and students from their LAUSD campuses, calling them a health threat during the coronavirus crisis. That prompted a fierce response from Myrna Castrejon, the president and CEO of the California Charter Schools Association, who called UTLA’s tactics “shameful, dangerous, dehumanizing and frankly, Trumpian.”

“In the midst of a worldwide pandemic, you chose to spend your time drafting a letter to elected leaders that targets and demeans charter families instead of showing compassion,” Castrejon wrote in a letter to UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl. “You labeled charter students, families, and staff as unique hazards to public health, stoking perverse and unfounded division. When you harass families on sidewalks and call our children invaders you inflame and divide, and educators would agree such behavior would be roundly condemned in a schoolyard.”

Like district schools, charter campuses are currently closed because of the coronavirus crisis, and schools are quickly transitioning to distance learning. Nearly 100 charter schools are also providing free meals to all Los Angeles families during this crisis, regardless of what schools their kids attend. UTLA’s letter calls for schools to be evicted from their co-locations when students return to school unless they can prove they are not a health threat.

Speak UP joined in a call for teachers and parents at all schools to unify to help families who are struggling to survive.

“Speak UP members have kids across Los Angeles who attend every type of public school, district and charter,” said Katie Braude, founder and CEO of Speak UP. “Our families represent every racial and socio-economic demographic in LAUSD, but we all share a common passion to make sure that every single kid has access to a great public education. That commitment to all children has never been more urgent. This is a time for us all to come together to help families who are most in need get through this crisis. This is no time to create more division between parents, teachers and kids based on the type of public school they attend.”

Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner announced Monday that all district schools will remain closed at least until May 1, and he authorized an emergency investment of $100 million to make sure every student has access to a digital device, plus training for teachers and families.

LAUSD also struck a deal with Verizon Sunday night to ensure every family has access to free wireless Internet “for all students in our schools who do not have it.” And LAUSD joined San Diego Unified in asking state legislative leaders for emergency funding to handle the needs schools are facing because of the COVID-19 crisis.

After one week of at-home learning, vast inequities are becoming apparent. Beutner said about half of LAUSD students are learning at their normal pace, while 25% are doing OK, and another 25% are not getting the learning they need because of the digital divide.

“Not all of our students can participate online because they lack needed digital learning devices at home or access to the Internet,” Beutner said. “And not all students, families and educators have been provided with enough training to support online learning.”

Families without the same digital access “deserve the same opportunity those in more affluent communities have,” Beutner said.

Just as parents began adjusting to their first day of homeschooling, many were stunned by the news that LAUSD would not open the 40 family resource centers on Wednesday that they had hoped would provide childcare for kids during the coronavirus crisis.

“That is a shocker,” Tunette Powell, a parent of three who serves as chair of the School Site Council at LAUSD’s Baldwin Hills Elementary school in South L.A. “What are parents going to do? That had been the talk of the town. All this is happening, but LAUSD is coming to the rescue.”

Although public health officials could not assure LAUSD that kids would be safe gathering at Family Resource Centers, kids will still have access to free meals. LAUSD is opening 60 grab-and-go meal distribution centers where families can take two meals a day for their kids starting Wednesday from 7-10 a.m. The locations of these centers can be found here.

Jeanette Godina, who has kids attending LAUSD’s Huntington Park Elementary and MaCES magnet in Southeast Los Angeles, said she’s worried that working parents may leave their kids home alone and unsupervised. “That’s what some did during the [teachers] strike [last year], and that’s what I’ve heard will happen now that the centers are not going to be open.”

L.A. parents reported feeling frazzled and frustrated Monday as they struggled to adjust to new homeschooling routines and new online learning platforms for their kids. “We just couldn’t open certain stuff,” said Lucy Leyva-Gonzalez, who has a 4th grader at Citizens of the World charter in Mar Vista, which had kids using Google classroom and Khan Academy.

It didn’t help that LAUSD’s Schoology platform was offline at the start of the day after an accident caused an outage at the district’s central data center. Fortunately, LAUSD had it back up and running by 8:30 a.m.

Cudahy mom Magda, who asked that her last name not be used, has an 11-year-old daughter in 5th grade at LAUSD’s Elizabeth Learning Center. She’s grateful that the school loaned her a laptop to use at home. “My daughters’ computer wasn’t working well, and the teacher was able to provide her one that she could use for now,” she said.

Many families do not have Wi-Fi, and most had not heard that companies like Spectrum, Charter and Comcast were offering families free broadband Internet access during the crisis. “Today not all students were able to join the online class,” Magda said, but some families in her community were helping others by “sharing each other’s Wi-Fi passwords to make sure that the community stays connected and students have access to the classes.”

Parents expressed a mixture of relief and trepidation about the prospect of homeschooling their kids for at least the next two weeks after LAUSD decided to close all schools starting Monday to help stem the spread of coronavirus. Forty resource centers will remain open for families who still need childcare and for kids that rely on schools for food.

“It was the right thing to do in order to prevent the spread,” said Mia Marano, who has kids with special needs and medical issues at LAUSD’s Saturn Elementary in South Los Angeles and at Larchmont Charter, which closed Friday after a relative of a student contracted the virus. “It was stressful thinking everyday, ‘Is this the day my kid might get sick?’ It’s also a relief knowing LAUSD collaborated with public television channels so they could have access to curriculum.”

About 25% of LAUSD families do not have access to the Internet at home so standards-based content aired on public television was the novel solution LAUSD pioneered. The district announced Thursday that it had teamed up with KCET (grades 9-12) and PBS SoCal (grades K-2), as well as KLCS (all grades) to provide educational programming for kids on TV and online in English and Spanish. The content will be very different from the usual public TV programming. Geometry classes, for instance, will be offered on air.

LAUSD also sent work plans home with kids on Friday. Saturn Elementary gave Marano’s 3rd grade son a homework packet and summer workbook and also asked families to keep a daily activity log. Larchmont created “a schedule with detailed curriculum projects in every subject” for her 6th grade son, and they’re communicating via Google classroom.

The 40 family resource centers opening Wednesday will provide childcare, learning and food to kids from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. They are designed to serve the kids of healthcare workers and first responders, as well as homeless and low-income kids, but they are open to all families. Workers from the district, county and Red Cross will take the temperature of all adults and kids before they enter in order to keep people safe.

LAUSD is also exploring with the county ways of distributing food to families that don’t use the resource centers.

“We’re in uncharted waters,” LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner said about the decision to close schools for the sake of public health. “These next two weeks will be difficult and we’re not certain what lies ahead of that.”

Special education centers serving kids with moderate to severe needs will also close, but those families can continue receiving services provided by the Regional Center. “Our attendance rates have dropped considerably compared to general education campuses over the last week, “ said Melissa Winters, President of the Special Education Principals’ Organization. “Many of our students have compromised immune systems and are medically fragile, making them susceptible to complications should they contract the virus.”

Parents are preparing for the possibility of school closures after the Los Angeles Unified School District declared a state of emergency Tuesday giving Superintendent Austin Beutner authority to take all steps necessary to keep staff and students safe during the coronavirus pandemic.

All LAUSD schools remained open Thursday, but LAUSD is exploring ways for kids to learn from home and to feed kids who rely on schools for free meals in the event of closures. After the California Department of Public Health issued new guidelines on social distancing, LAUSD told all school leaders Wednesday evening to cancel assemblies, school open houses, field trips and spectators at sporting events. Schools were also told to exclude from campus for 14 days all students, faculty, staff and visitors who have traveled outside of the country.

LAUSD is providing extra cleaning of high-touch surfaces in schools and closely monitoring all coronavirus cases with the county health experts to determine if there is any connection to L.A schools. So far, there are none, but Beutner said district staff is “working around the clock to make sure we are prepared.”

Parent anxiety levels and pressure on LAUSD to close schools skyrocketed this week, though, as colleges across the country began moving all classes online, L.A. private schools announced closures and many workplaces directed employees to start working from home.

Many parents took to Facebook groups such as LA Mommies Wednesday and Thursday to debate whether to keep their kids at home. Some parents said they were pulling their kids out, while others said that they were waiting.

“I have one child with Type 1 diabetes who is still at school,” said Mia Marano, a West Adams parent with one child at LAUSD’s Saturn elementary and another at Larchmont charter school. “It gives me pause because he is one of the more vulnerable. There’s plenty of children who have all kinds of health issues, and by keeping the schools open at this point, you’re putting them and anyone else in their families at risk.”

While most kids show no serious symptoms from coronavirus, they can still contract the virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

With one warning letter sent to LAUSD Board Member Scott Schmerelson (BD3) and a second investigation underway, the state Fair Political Practices Commission is reviewing yet another complaint filed against Schmerelson over inaccurate financial disclosures.

The latest complaint from parent activist Kenchy Ragsdale alleges discrepancies between the financial disclosure form Schmerelson filed when he first declared his intent to run for office in November 2014 and the one filed when he entered office eight months later.

Schmerelson recently submitted an amended 2014 financial disclosure form at City Ethics showing that he owned Kraft Foods stock when he filed to run for office the first time. There was no mention of ownership or sale of Kraft Foods stock, however, when he disclosed his personal finances upon entering office in July 2015.

Kraft Foods used to be owned by tobacco giant Altria, the company whose stock the FPPC recently found that Schmerelson failed to properly report on his 2016 financial disclosure form. Kraft was spun off from Altria in 2007, meaning they have been two separate companies for the past 13 years.

Schmerelson, however, incorrectly conflated the two companies in a recent Facebook live video after a parent asked about his investments in Altria, which owns a 35% stake in the vaping company JUUL.

“Somebody said to me, ‘You know, Scott, the people who own JUUL also make Kraft mayonnaise, Kraft macaroni and cheese and salad dressing,’” he said in a private Facebook group. “These companies are constantly buying and selling each other.”

Schmerelson’s erroneous conflation of Kraft and Altria raises additional questions about whether he actually owned Altria stock the last time he ran for office and failed to disclose his investment in the tobacco stock to the public.

“The fact is, neither Kraft Foods nor Altria appears on the Form 700 Schmerelson filed in July 2015,” the complaint said. “Either he failed to disclose his ownership or sale of Kraft Foods stock on that July 2015 form. Or in reality, he owned Altria stock in November 2014, not Kraft Foods, and also failed to report ownership of that stock in July 2015. Either way, his Form 700 filed in July 2015 is not accurate or complete.”