COVID cases among students, faculty force closure of high school for the first time in LA County

SOUTH LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- View Park Preparatory High School has been shut down after 15 students and one faculty member tested positive for COVID-19, the first such closure in Los Angeles County since schools opened this fall.

The South Los Angeles school, with an enrollment of around 400 students, was forced to move to remote learning for this entire week because of the infections. Out of those enrolled, 77 students are vaccinated against the virus, according to the principal.

The infected students are from different grades. Two hundred students have been identified as close contacts. The decision to keep students home was made over the weekend when the number of positive cases reached 15.

"Any disruption to their normal learning is something that we don't want to have happen...As a parent, I would want to know that my school is doing whatever it can do to make sure that my students are safe, so that's our overall stance. We want to provide a safe and equitable learning experience for the students," said the school's principal, Charles Lemle.

"I do believe that it was bound to happen because with everyone converging in one place all at one time that it was inevitable," said parent Cyrille Cooper-Jackson.

Aspects of current instruction already involved some remote learning, so the switch wasn't a huge change for students, he added.

View Park's football team played against Crenshaw High School last Friday, and one of the vaccinated students who tested positive is on the team, which forced the entire Crewnshaw football team to quarantine as well.

The school was conducting testing Thursday with plans to resume in-person instruction on Monday.