Leaders See Crisis In LAUSD's Dismal In-Person Attendance

LOS ANGELES, CA — Classrooms have reopened in Los Angeles, but the students are staying away. Only 7 percent of high school students returned to their classrooms since Los Angeles Unified School District schools reopened last month.

Their younger counterparts are also opting to finish out the year with online learning. Among middle-schoolers, only 12 percent returned to their classrooms, and only 30 percent of elementary school children are back. The numbers are much lower than the district anticipated. They reflect a leeriness among families, many who live in the communities hardest hit by the coronavirus. They also raise concerns about attendance in the fall and during summer school. Some leaders are calling the situation a crisis.

State Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach), who chairs the Assembly Education Committee, told the Los Angeles Times, a learning crisis looms.

“It’s tragic for the future of those students and tragic for the future of California,” said O’Donnell. “It means students are not receiving in-classroom instruction — where they learn best. What does this mean for the fall?”

District officials hope the expanded eligibility of the COVID-19 vaccine to children as young as 12 could prompt more students to return to school, but there is little time for immunity to kick in before summer break. Schools began reopening last month for the school year ending June 11. LAUSD is the second-largest school district in the nation, serving 650,000.

"Unfortunately, the number of smiling faces we see on playgrounds differs greatly in schools across the Los Angeles area," Superintendent Austin Beutner said Monday. "As students return to schools, patterns are emerging among families who have chosen for their child to return in-person, and those remaining online," Beutner said. "Elementary schools have higher in-person enrollment in more affluent communities. In high schools, we see the opposite -- more students from lower-income communities returning to school in-person than their peers in higher-income communities."

Through a parent survey conducted in the spring, the district had anticipated more than twice as many middle and high school students would return. LAUSD implemented extensive district-wide safety measures, regular COVID-19 testing of all students, and vaccines for anyone age 16 and up to accommodate students being back in the classroom. For COVID safety reasons, most instruction for middle and high school students remains online, even for those who attend school in person.

Something Beutner said he thinks will make a difference in students coming back to the classroom is the availability of vaccines for those under age 16. The Food and Drug Administration on Monday authorized the Pfizer vaccine for youth aged 12 to 15.

"The availability of vaccines for children ages 12 to 18 is an important part of the path to recovery in schools," Beutner said. "Ninety percent of the people on a school campus at any point in time are children. Herd immunity won't be reached in schools or in the broader community until children are vaccinated."

The district offers vaccines at 15 school-based neighborhood clinics, and Beutner said the doses will be made available to all students when they become eligible to be vaccinated.

"Our aim is to bring access to the vaccine to every middle and high school in Los Angeles Unified as soon as we can," Beutner said.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Unified has provided more than 125,000 COVID tests at schools. On an average day, Los Angeles Unified administers about one- fourth of all the COVID tests in the Los Angeles area, making it the single largest provider in the region.

Last week, the district reported that 15 students and two staff members who were at schools tested positive for COVID-19 in the school-based COVID testing program, which uses contract tracing to identify other students and staff who may have been exposed and need to isolate at home.

Beutner has stressed the need for people to remain vigilant with mask-wearing, hand washing and social distancing to protect themselves and others.

The superintendent also continued to advocate for the need for more resources and funding to support students, especially elementary students who have fallen behind in reading and math. The district reports that, for students in kindergarten through third grade, only 48% are proficient readers and only 32% are at the level they need to be at with math.

"That means almost 70,000 children need help now in reading and more than 80,000 children need help in math," Beutner said. "We can't reopen schools and just go back to the way things were. Out of crisis comes the opportunity to do what was once unimaginable. This is a once-in-a-lifetime moment to make things meaningfully better for the children we serve."

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.