About half of Los Angeles Unified students will not be returning to campus, based on early, partial results of a parent survey, with more wariness expressed in communities hard hit by COVID-19 and among families with older students, whose return options include no escape from online learning.
The parent survey, begun last week, is far from complete but provides an early look at preferences among the families of 465,000 kindergarten through 12th graders in the nation’s second-largest school system. So far, about 10% of parents have submitted the surveys, which ask families to select between remaining in full remote learning or returning to campus for about half the time starting in about mid-April or later.
Overall, 51% of those responding chose the in-person hybrid option. Among grade levels, 62% favored a return at the elementary level, 44% at middle school and 33% at high school.
The district on Monday also released a snapshot by community, indicating that harder-hit areas were more reluctant to send children back. This difference shows up primarily at the elementary school level in areas highlighted by the district. For instance, in Florence-Firestone/Watts, 43% of students would be returning. That area has a COVID-19 death rate of 279 residents per 100,000, according to data released by the district, and a vaccination rate of only 7%.
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