School Reopenings: Expect Masks, Tiny Classes, Staggered Days
The L.A. County Office of Education released a detailed plan for returning to school, featuring stark changes for students and teachers.
LOS ANGELES, CA — The L.A. County Office of Education released a detailed plan for returning to school in the fall, and it's like nothing American schools have ever seen before. Under the new guidelines, all students will be required to wear masks, and classrooms would be limited to 16 students with lunch being served in the classroom and recess a solitary affair. School days would be staggered, each student could be assigned one ball to play with and hallways will see one-way foot traffic — all in an effort to protect the county's two million students and their families from the coronavirus outbreak.
The detailed 45-page plan released Wednesday imposes severe restrictions on both teachers and students. According to the Los Angeles Times, the framework was developed through the work of county staffers, outside advisors and representatives from the 23 county school systems, each of which must develop its own reopening plan. It remains to be seen if the county's various school districts will have the means to impose many of the recommended restrictions.
"Our main priority is health and safety," said Debra Duardo, the superintendent for the L.A. County Office of Education, which provides services and financial oversight for the county's 80 school systems. "Unfortunately some of the things that children could enjoy in the past, they're not going to be able to do that."
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Teachers and administrators face a monumental task trying to balance the health of students with their emotional and developmental need for socialization. Getting through to kindergartners eager to play tag with one another will be a major challenge.
"That is a big challenge because our nature is to play together and the socialization is so important at that age," Cerritos Principal Perla Chavez-Fritz told the Los Angeles Times. "Maybe hula hoops and things that the students can play together alone."
Despite unprecedented efforts, schools and teachers have had mixed success garnering student engagement through remote learning. The need for a robust return to academics has never been higher than in the upcoming school year, yet schools face budget cuts of about 10% in the governor's proposed budget.
City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.
School Reopenings: Expect Masks, Tiny Classes, Staggered Days | Los Angeles, CA Patch