In a few weeks, students of public colleges and high schools in Los Angeles will be able to push the doors of their establishments for the first time since March 16, 2020 and settle into class. There, they will take out their computers and headphones, and they will take a course on their screen. Because the teaching will always take place online, with a teacher who has stayed at home. And no more than two days a week. Primary schoolchildren should be reunited with their teachers on April 18, part-time, but only if their parents wish. And they had to wait more than two months, after the green light from the health authorities, given on February 16.
In the agglomeration, the rate of infection varies from simple to tenfold: 2% in the richest districts, against more than 20% in the poorest areas.
The commitments of President Biden, the billions of dollars promised by the State of California or the good news on the side of the Covid-19 epidemic (less than 1,000 people hospitalized on March 13 in Los Angeles County, a first since November 2020) and vaccination (over 3.1 million doses administered) did nothing. Faced with the intransigence of the staff union and the concern of a majority of parents, the school district bowed. No precise date has even been announced for this secondary school trompe-l’œil resumption, which has been authorized again in Los Angeles County since Monday, March 15.
“They waited too long. They should have prepared a plan to be ready to open once the situation improved ”, regrets, dejected, Ross Novie. In December 2020, this father of two high school students from West Los Angeles set up his own association, The LA School Uprising, to defend a return to the classroom. On the other side of town, in East LA, Jazmin Garcia, mother of a little girl in CE1, is on the contrary relieved. “I live in a neighborhood heavily affected by Covid-19, defends the young woman, a member of the parents’ organization Reclaim Our Schools, which has supported the union’s demands. Families don’t want a return to school. “ In the metropolitan area, the infection rate varies from simple to tenfold: 2% in the richest neighborhoods, against more than 20% in the poorest areas, such as East LA
550,000 students and 75,000 employees
Los Angeles, the country’s second school district behind New York, a juggernaut of more than 550,000 students and 75,000 employees, is like a California which has largely preferred to close its schools since the start of the pandemic and has now struggling to fit the devil in his box. The mayor of the city, Eric Garcetti, as in the vast majority of the United States, is not responsible for the district, which has its own elected officials. As for the governor, Gavin Newsom, he has tackled. The Democrat will need the active support of powerful teachers’ organizations in the campaign ahead. The unions have notably obtained the priority vaccination of school staff since the 1is mars.
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