Los Angeles School and Teacher Union agrees to reopen classrooms

The Los Angeles Unified School District and its teachers’ union reached an interim agreement to restore classroom teaching, paving the way for the reopening of some classrooms in one of the last major school districts to bring back students in substantial numbers.

The deal, conditional on teachers vaccinating against coronavirus, extensive health measures and the county’s imminent exit from the state’s most restrictive layer of health regulations, was announced Tuesday night in a joint statement by the district superintendent, Austin Beutner, and union president Cecily Myart-Cruz.

“The right way to reopen schools should include Covid’s highest safety standards in schools, the continued reduction of the virus in the communities we serve and access to vaccination for school staff,” they said. “This agreement achieves that set of shared goals.”

The agreement is subject to approval by the district school council and ratification of membership by United Teachers Los Angeles, the union. The two sides have been negotiating the terms of a face-to-face return for eight months.

Under the interim agreement, students in elementary and high-need education – those with learning disabilities, problems with access to technology and other academic issues – will be brought back in about six weeks to allow employees who return from school to be fully vaccinated, according to authorities familiar with district negotiations.

As elementary and high school teachers are vaccinated, these students will be introduced gradually, with the aim of offering face-to-face options to all students by May.

Authorities said that, at most, instruction will be a mix of remote and face-to-face teaching, allowing students to attend school several hours a week in small, stable groups, while still taking classes online. The last day of school is June 11, and the district hopes to offer the summer school again.

California began immunizing teachers across the state this month, with Governor Gavin Newsom reserving 10% of the new doses for school officials. About 38,000 of the Los Angeles district’s 86,000 teachers and other support staff have been vaccinated, received appointments or waived the privilege, Beutner said. Most of them worked in preschools and primary schools.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that many schools, especially for the younger grades, can be reopened at least partially with adequate safety measures before all staff are vaccinated.

The district of Los Angeles, with more than 600,000 students, was the only one of the 10 largest school districts in the country to fail to bring back a significant number of students and is among the last major districts in the state to establish a reopening plan with its unions. .

This is partly due to a brutal post-holiday increase in Southern California coronavirus infections. But the delay also arose from lengthy job negotiations with teachers, who refused to return without vaccination to all school personnel who would be called in person, and who insisted on a significantly lower daily rate of new coronavirus cases in Los County. Angeles.

The union also demanded extensive health precautions, including coronavirus testing and better ventilation in school buildings.

In a vote last week, more than 90 percent of union members endorsed these three conditions for a return to the classroom. This week, with the virus decreasing across the region, Los Angeles County was expected to abandon the state’s strictest level of regulations.

It is not clear how many families will benefit from face-to-face education. In the most recent district survey, conducted in the fall, two-thirds of families said they would not send their children back in the near future.

Only among white families do most of the interviewees want a return in person. Eighty percent of students in the district are low-income and 82 percent are black or Latino, all groups disproportionately affected by the pandemic.

In the governor’s speech on the state of the state on Tuesday, Newsom said “there is nothing more fundamental to an egalitarian society than taking our children safely back to the classroom”.

“Look, Jen and I experience this as parents of four young children,” said Newsom, echoing the pandemic frustrations of many California parents. “Helping them to deal with the fatigue of the ‘Zoom school’. The loneliness of missing friends. Frustrated by emotions that they do not yet fully understand. “

He also noted that the state had committed $ 6.6 billion for school tuition, summer school, extended school hours and mental health programs.

“We can do this,” said the governor. “Science is solid.”