65K Students, Staff In Los Angeles Test COVID-19 Positive Ahead Of Return To School

More than 65,000 students and staff at the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) have tested COVID-19 positive ahead of the back-to-school schedule Tuesday. Over 424,000 test results were recorded as of Jan. 10.

In a statement, the district said that as of 4 p.m. Jan. 10, a total of 424,230 coronavirus tests were recorded. Of the recorded tests, 65,630 came out positive among students and staff.

Of the staff members, the positivity rate was at 14.9%, while the student positivity rate was higher at 16.6%. For its spring 2022 school safety protocols, the district said baseline testing “will be required for all individuals.” All students, staff, and employees are also required to use face masks whether indoors or outdoors.

Los Angeles schools have been preparing to get students and staff back to school safely but there have been hurdles along the way as the debate continues regarding virtual learning and in-person safety. Some educators have also expressed concerns about the recent data. “The data didn’t look good. In fact, that data looks scary,” Fidel Ramirez, the CEO of Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, was quoted as saying by KABC-TV.

When asked how the data regarding infected students and staff affected decision-making for the school’s administration, Ramirez said, “that’s probably one of the reasons why it has been much more stressful.” As part of the efforts to help students fulfil the requirement of providing a negative test before returning to school Tuesday, LAUSD hosted multiple COVID-19 testing sites over the weekend.

The district also offered at-home rapid tests for free to students to further encourage fulfilment of the new policy, KTLA reported. The test kits were distributed to be picked up across 63 different “Grab & Go” sites in the area. While the LAUSD is hard at work in hitting its goal of getting students back to in-person classes, other districts across the United States are still debating the end of virtual learning.

In Chicago, students lost four days of learning as the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) struggled to strike a deal with the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) over school-return safety policies.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot said students will finally be able to return to in-person learning Wednesday following days of feuding with the CTU, WMAQ-TV reported. The union confirmed that it has voted to suspend its remote work action after continuously demanding a test-to-return policy in CPS.