Some 34,000 – about 12 percent – of Los Angeles Unified School District’s 12 and older students have not met the deadline to submit proof of their first COVID-19 vaccine, according to a recent Los Angeles Times report.
Given those modest demands, the school’s dismal performance data should surprise no one. In 2019, 61 percent of the school’s students were chronically absent – six times higher than the state average. Students perform worse than their statewide peers in math, English and language arts, and worse even than the average LAUSD school. They’re less likely to be prepared for college and less likely to graduate high school compared to the state average.
But this school year, City of Angels was rebooted to serve as an alternative for families uncomfortable with a return to in-person learning. Suddenly, the formerly small independent school is now hosting 16,000 students, a more than 10-fold increase.
You can guess what’s happening now.
A large number of these students faced teacher shortages, administrative, and enrollment problems, the LA Times reported, Some students missed days or weeks of instruction, even after constant emails and phone calls. One parent’s kids had their teachers reassigned three times. Many of the teachers are actually just substitutes. Some have “received ever-shifting instructions and no guidance from administrators by phone or email.” Scott Schmerelson, a board member for the Los Angeles Board of Education, called the situation “an emergency.”
It’s hard to imagine how adding another 34,000 students to City of Angels will make that emergency anything other than a catastrophe.
LA Unified is holding the line, hoping most parents will end up vaccinating their kids. But a nationwide survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation said 22 percent of parents of 12-17 year olds said they definitely will not vaccinate their children.
Giving likeminded LAUSD parents an ultimatum – get the vaccine or attend one L.A.’s worst schools – may drive them out of the district altogether. Parents still have some alternatives to district schools, including homeschooling, learning pods, or private schools. A ballot initiative aimed at offering parents $13,000 annually for private school tuition or other qualified education expenses is now in the signature-gathering stage, with the goal of appearing on the November 2022 ballot.
“Does the National School Board Association still have enough money left in its coffers to send Joe Biden and Merrick Garland nice fruit baskets?” - Ed Morrisey
National Review’s Radio Free California Podcast: Boom Times for Stupid: CPC President Will Swaim and board member David Bahnsen discuss Sacramento’s new way to transform corporations into carriers of lefty change, Santa Cruz requiring masks at home and LAUSD’s decision to send unvaccinated kids to one of its worst campuses.
