Los Angeles School District Reaches Deal To Reopen Classes

Los Angeles School District Reaches Deal To Reopen Classes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Students in the nation's second-largest school district could return to class next month under a tentative deal announced Tuesday with the powerful teachers union.

The Los Angeles Unified School District and the union said the tentative agreement provides a number of “safety parameters” that would allow a partial reopening of campuses.

As with most other California public schools, LAUSD's more than 600,000 students have been learning online for almost a year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“It's our shared commitment to the highest safety standards and spirit of trust and collaboration we will take with us back to schools,” Superintendent Austin Beutner and United Teachers Los Angeles President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a joint statement.

The plan, which needs ratification by the school board and the union membership, lays out a roadmap for reopening schools after Los Angeles County drops from the state's most-restrictive COVID-19 tier, purple, into the red tier, which county officials said could happen as early as this week.

Preschool and elementary schoolers would return in mid-April. Middle and high school students would follow at the end of April.

Crucially, the agreement says teachers, along with nurses and other union members, won't have to return to work until they