Los Angeles

LAUSD Offers Glimpse Into What Schools Will Look Like Once Students Return

August 7, 2020 / 6:31 PM PDT / KCAL News

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LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — With the start of the new school year less than two weeks away, the Los Angeles Unified School District provided a glimpse into what it will look like once students are allowed to return to the classroom.

Stickers on tables show where students will be allowed to sit in order to maintain physical distance from one another once they're able to return to schools. (CBSLA)

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Buetner took a tour of Burbank Middle School Friday to see the coronavirus safety measures that have been put in place.

"We have electrostatically cleaned, top to bottom, the school," Buetner said. "And by that I mean, you ionize, what is in effect Lysol, so that it sticks to every surface."

The Highland Park school is being used as a test site to see what works and what doesn't before safety efforts are rolled out districtwide.

In addition to increased sanitation efforts, there are hand sanitizing stations throughout the campus, isolation rooms inside the nurse's office and stickers in the one-way hallways to remind people to stay six feet apart.

"And we expect to make this better and better in the weeks and months ahead," Buetner said.

But the schools will remain empty for the indeterminable future as LAUSD will start the 2020-21 school year remotely until state health standards are met.

"It is the number of cases per 100,000 population," Buetner said. "We're still in the 300 level. The state standard is 100."

And earlier this week, after about two months of negotiations, LAUSD and the teachers union came to an agreement on what the school day will look like.

"For us, that will look like about 30 minutes a day per class of live instruction and about 15 to 20 minutes of independent instruction," Chrissy Moore, Burbank Middle School principal, said.

And Buetner said parents will learn more in the coming days as school principals hold virtual town halls ahead of the first day of school.

All campuses will have safety measures in place by Aug. 18, even as the union continues to bargain with the district about how and when to reopen schools.