LAUSD's Offers Online Summer School With Help From James Cameron

LOS ANGELES, CA — After a rocky start to online classes due to a dramatic socioeconomic digital divide in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Unified School District will begin summer classes online June 24 with almost every student in the district connected to the internet.

Superintendent Austin Beutner announced the online only summer school Monday. The district is offering a number of new classes for summer, including animation, environmental science, music classes, space exploration, sports science and something called "Voyage of the Titanic" with film director James Cameron, who helmed the blockbuster hit film.

The district was able to scale up online learning though a $100 million partnership with Verizon for computers and Wi-Fi infrastructure, especially for students and families that cannot afford the technology.

Last week, Beutner announced the district's 2020-2021 academic year will begin Aug. 18, but it remains unclear how classes will be held amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The transition to online learning is our moonshot. It's that important and that difficult," Beutner said last Monday. "And like the astronauts on the Eagle, we'll all benefit from the learning when all are safely back home, or in the case of our students, safely back in the classroom."

The superintendent wrote on Twitter that the district is working with UCLA to plan for a "safe reopening," but there is no timeline as to when LAUSD will have students return to its facilities.

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