Dear Family,
I hope this finds you and your family safe and well. It’s been an extraordinary year since COVID-19 forced the closure of school classrooms. A time of sacrifice and determination, pain and suffering, and moments of hope and optimism – sometimes all in the same day. I’m pleased to share we see light at the end of the tunnel and plan to reopen school classrooms in April.
Our goal has been to do this as soon as possible and in the safest way possible. There are three pieces to the puzzle which need to be in place to get schools reopened:
- The highest standard of health and safety practices at schools
- The steps already taken to implement health and safety practices at our schools exceed the most recent guidelines set forth by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as well as the California Department of Public Health. Every school has a report card where the standards are made clear and inspectors make certain they are met. You can view the report card for your school at achieve.lausd.net/readinessreportcard or on your school’s website.
- Continued reduction in the spread of COVID-19 throughout the communities we serve
- The level of the virus continues to decline. To give that a bit of context, the current positive rates in COVID
testing at schools, as well as COVID case levels in the Los Angeles area, were last seen in October.
- Access to vaccinations for school staff
- The final piece of the puzzle is vaccinations for school staff. I’m pleased to see that this approach is supported by Governor Newsom and President Biden. Both have made clear all who work in schools need to be provided with access to the vaccine as soon as possible. While other cities in California, like Long Beach, got a head start when local health authorities there started with vaccinations for school staff back in January, we’re working as hard as we can to make up for lost time since vaccinations were first made available for Los Angeles Unified staff just last week.
We are pleased to share this Return to Campus Family Guide. It has in it much of the information you’ll need to make the decision about whether your child will return to school for the remainder of the semester or continue with online instruction. Once you have a full understanding of the choices, we ask you to let us know whether your child will return to the classroom or complete the semester online. Schools will need that information to finalize plans to make sure every student gets the best possible education. You may complete the questionnaire online at reopening.lausd.net/familyselection.
Thank you for your continued patience and support.
Austin Beutner
Superintendent