Alina Dang
Last Monday, the school districts in Los Angeles and San Diego announced that school in the fall would be online-only. Right now, the two largest public school districts in California are not reopening until COVID-19 is completely under control.
The news comes in response to the coronavirus that has worsened in California, with its death toll rising more than 7,000 over the weekend. Over two weeks, 7.4 percent of test results came back positive — over 100,000 tests are run in a day. Los Angeles and San Diego Counties included the counties with the highest surge in California.
However, President Trump argues that schools in Los Angeles should reopen despite the virus. He believes that schools should resume because children want to go back.“Schools should be opened. You’re losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed,” Mr. Trump said.
Despite this, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Superintendent, Mr. Beutner, said the district will keep online education. LAUSD has been providing remote virtual learning to 700,000 students and 75,000 employees since mid-March. He has also said that the decisions would only come under consideration e when local infection rates lower.
Most of the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA)members do not support the physical reopening of schools. In an article published in The New York Times, journalists Shawn Hubler and Dana Goldstein wrote, “In an informal survey of 18,000 United Teachers Los Angeles members that was released on Friday, 83 percent agreed that campuses should not physically reopen.”
Los Angeles and San Diego school districts have decided to stop considering partial physical return to school, making it the largest district in the country to do so. Together, they enroll about 825,000 students. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/lausd-san-diego-school-reopening.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage