By Howard Blume, LA Times Staff Writer
Only 7% of high school students and 12% of middle school students have returned to reopened campuses in the Los Angeles school district, sounding alarms about what these figures portend for next fall and highlighting the need for intense intervention when more traditional in-person schooling resumes.
As the school year winds down with the vast majority of students at home online, an uncertain summer and fall back-to-school future is emerging: How soon will families be ready to return children to campus? Will many demand an online option? Will students attend summer school to stem learning loss?
For state Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach), the return data denote a crisis.
“It’s tragic for the future of those students and tragic for the future of California,” said O’Donnell, who chairs the Assembly Education Committee. “It means students are not receiving in-classroom instruction — where they learn best. What does this mean for the fall?”
Although officials insist they will act aggressively to help students, the low return rate could intensify pressure on the school district.
Even after L.A. Unified instituted some of the most extensive safety measures in the nation, it was not enough for many families still fearful of the pandemic. Others, especially high school students, rejected the strict limitations on movement, instruction, enrichment activities and socializing and opted to stay with distance learning. For many, the gradual reopenings from mid- to late April were too little, too late — and families chose not to disrupt schedules and obligations so late in the school year, which ends June 11.
The L.A. Unified reopening plan offers both middle and high school students a half-time, on-campus academic schedule that includes no in-person instruction. Instead, students must remain in one classroom, from which they log into their classes. The teacher in the room is instructing other students online in various places. Twice a day for 30 minutes, that teacher will engage directly with the students in the room for an activity to support their social and emotional needs.
The district adopted this approach to limit the mixing of students as they move from class to class, something that many other districts have allowed.
This format was a miscalculation, said Tressa Pankovits, associate director for Reinventing America’s Schools at Progressive Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank.
“If a kid is miserable doing Zoom lessons, why force them to do it in an unfamiliar classroom with a teacher whose attention is on students in another class? It’s a ridiculous proposition, really,” Pankovits said. “It’s inarguable that LAUSD tried too hard to balance the demands from the adults, clearly at the expense of its students.”
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