LA Schools Need 25,000 Vaccines To Safely Reopen, Beutner Says

LOS ANGELES, CA — Just days after L.A. City Councilman Joe Buscaino threatened a lawsuit to force Los Angeles schools to reopen for in-person learning, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner countered with a call for 25,000 vaccines. That’s how much it would take to inoculate all teachers, administrators, janitors and bus drivers serving elementary schools in the district, he said Monday.

Less than one percent of the city’s elementary school students have been able to attend in-person learning since March of 2020, and community leaders are increasingly willing to overrule demands by the Los Angeles teacher’s union that they not be forced to return to the classroom until they are vaccinated.

“To vaccinate all who work in these schools who are not otherwise already eligible, we would need to vaccinate about 25,000 people,” Beutner said. “You heard that right — vaccinating 25,000 people will allow us to reopen elementary school classrooms for 250,000 children and help their half-million-plus family members start on the path to recovery and allow many of them to go back to work.”

Beutner did not say that the vaccination issue would be a dealbreaker, but the union has been adamant that teachers must have access to the vaccine before returning to their classrooms. Beutner and school board members attempted to put the breaks on the rush to reopen.

"The problem is COVID levels in the Los Angeles area have not for a single day since March met the state standards for the reopening of schools," Beutner and the board members said in a statement Friday. "We cannot break state law to reopen schools."

But California’s largest school district is under pressure from all corners to start getting children back into their classrooms.

Buscaino announced Thursday his plans to introduce a motion next week asking the city attorney to explore legal options for quickly forcing the L.A. Unified School District to reopen its campuses for in-person learning.

The Centers for Disease Control last month urged schools to reopen without waiting for all teachers to first be inoculated, and local doctors are urging the same. The Southern California Chapter 2 of the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a call for immediate school reopenings.
"I stand with the 1,500 pediatricians in Southern California as well as the director of the (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) who are calling for the safe reopening of our schools," Buscaino said Thursday.

Unlike neighboring health departments such as Long Beach, Los Angeles County has not prioritized the vaccination of teachers. Instead, the county is focused on getting older people vaccinated while vaccine supplies remain extremely limited.

Beutner called the threat of a lawsuit political theater, and in their statement, the board members urged city leaders to do their part to make it safer for schools to reopen.

“If Mr. Buscaino had called any of us asking how the City of Los Angeles might help schools, we would have suggested they redouble their efforts to reduce the level of the virus and make sure teachers and all who work at schools get immediate access to vaccines,” they wrote.

The county still has not established a timeline for getting teachers vaccinated, and children in Los Angeles County aren’t expected to have access to the vaccine until after the school year. Beutner has floated the idea of extending the next school year to make up for the loss of classroom time this year.