LAUSD Begins Reopening Campuses Today. For Some Young Students, It's Their First Day In A Classroom — Ever

On Monday morning, Leticia Duggan was checking in with her first graders on Zoom. Tuesday, she reminded them, is a big day.

“Who gets to see their classroom for the first time tomorrow in person?” Duggan asked. A few small hands rose inside the tiny squares on her laptop screen.

Duggan is a teacher at John W. Mack Elementary School near USC, one of the 72 LAUSD elementary and early education campuses welcoming students back today.

L.A. Unified School District Superintendent Austin Beutner drops into Madison Avenue Elementary teacher Maritza Gonzalez's Zoom lesson.

(Kyle Stokes

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LAist )

Hovering over Duggan’s shoulder was the district’s superintendent, Austin Beutner, who was there to tour her reconfigured classroom. That’s where Beutner found Duggan chatting with her class.

“Has everyone picked out their favorite mask to wear tomorrow?” Beutner asked the bunch. (“Yay!” one student replied.)

On Tuesday, the first phase of LAUSD’s three week return-to-campus plan begins.

• The week of April 12: Roughly 10% of LAUSD elementary and early education campuses reopen. (Here’s a map of exactly which ones.)
• The week of April 19: The rest of LAUSD’s 700+ elementary schools and early education centers welcome students back to classrooms.
• The week of April 26: LAUSD middle- and high schoolers return to in-person instruction.

Beutner listed the preparations that LAUSD has made for this moment: COVID-19 testing for students, vaccine clinics for families.

“We’ve set, I believe, a new national standard with the air filtration upgrades, the doubling of custodial staff to keep every classroom clean and sanitized, the reconfiguring of school spaces to keep everybody six feet apart.”