Some LAUSD parents not happy about secondary schools reopening guidelines

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- All signs point to the Los Angeles Unified School District returning to in-person instruction next month. It was always going to be a hybrid model, but some middle and high school parents are outraged at what the district and teacher's union agreed to.

"My two boys are supposed to go school to sit in class and watch Zoom while their vaccinated teacher is teaching them from the comfort of their home. I couldn't believe it. They have had so much time to get this right. Not weeks, months. To look at best practices," said Joel Delman, a father of two LAUSD students.

Delman has a son in 7th grade and one in 10th grade. His family has been pushing for in-person instruction, but now his kids may not return to campus for the final six weeks of the school year.

"What I'm really scared of is if they do decide to stay home, that the union and LAUSD say look, all these parents have decided to keep their kids home. They don't want to come back to school. That's not the case. It's just that what you offered us to return to school simply makes it not worth it," said Delman.

Elementary school students will spend more time in the classroom with their teacher and other students than secondary students would, who will have an advisory class similar to homeroom. This was a focus of Thursday's LAUSD school board meeting where the members approved the agreement.

"Given the feedback that I know we're getting about secondary not being good enough, I hope you can explain the constraints the team was under trying to find a schedule this late in the year that worked," said LAUSD school board member Nick Melvoin.

"Elementary students are together all day. They're taking the same classes all day and they have the same teacher all day. Now let's go to secondary. Period 2, the 12 students go to six or eight or 12 different classes."

"For as much as we would like to have the perfect, we knew that we had to do safety first. And that's why we thought we would do it through advisory where the kids know the teacher and with that social/emotional, the ability to talk about what's happening. Create really what's like an elementary school classroom for secondary," said Linda Del Cueto, the chief human resources officer for LAUSD.

Superintendent Austin Beutner said this is the best the district can do right now to keep students, teachers and their families safe - admitting it's far from what they wanted to do, but that could change as COVID-19 continues to decrease in LA County.