LA reopening deal ends California's biggest schools standoff

SACRAMENTO — Los Angeles Unified and its teachers union announced a long-sought deal on Tuesday night to reopen schools next month in the nation's second largest district following a year of closures.

It marked an end to California's biggest reopening standoff and one of the remaining such battles in a major U.S. city as President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom have pushed to bring all students back this spring. That said, the deal is still conditioned on teacher ratification and a host of terms that could delay a resumption to in-person learning.

Los Angeles Unified and United Teachers of Los Angeles said in a joint statement that the tentative agreement "sets a new standard" for school reopening safety. That includes full vaccinations for all school staff, low community Covid-19 rates, weekly virus testing and upgraded ventilation systems in addition to standard protocols like masking and social distancing.

The plan aims to return elementary students to daily in-person instruction by mid-April, with alternating morning and afternoon cohorts to minimize congregation and potential spread of the virus. Older students will remain online but can return to campus by the end of April "for peer interaction, social-emotional learning and lessons for college and career exploration," according to a summary of the agreement released Tuesday.

“As we have both stated for some time, the right way to reopen schools must include the highest standard of Covid-19 safety in schools, continued reduction of the virus in the communities we serve and access to vaccinations for school staff," Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner and UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said in a statement. "This agreement achieves that shared set of goals. It’s our shared commitment to the highest safety standards and spirit of trust and collaboration we will take with us back to schools.”

Most of California's 6 million public schoolchildren have been out of classrooms for nearly a year, making California the state with the least in-person instruction, according to a tracker by school information site Burbio. But a flood of districts here are striking deals with their employee unions to return, some with partial hybrid schedules. Momentum began when Newsom and counties prioritized teachers for vaccines in late February after weeks of focusing mostly on seniors and health care workers. The major remaining holdouts include districts in Sacramento and Oakland, both of whose teachers went on strike in 2019, as did UTLA.

Tuesday's agreement, which still has to be ratified by UTLA members and the Los Angeles Unified school board, comes nearly a year to the day that California's largest district announced closures at the start of the pandemic.

Union leaders and administrators in the 600,000-student district struggled for several months to agree on a reopening plan. But California's declining case rates and Newsom's set-aside of vaccine doses for teachers sped up the timeline for a return date.

The agreement comes on the heels of Newsom signing legislation that will reward schools with grant money if they reopen by April 1, with proportional decreases through May 15. The tentative Los Angeles plan would forfeit some of that money, assuming Los Angeles County advances to the less restrictive red tier of coronavirus restrictions within days as expected.

Staying closed while in the purple tier has been a sticking point for the union, and UTLA Secretary Arlene Inouye said Tuesday that members are seeking to add language in the agreement to allow for "immediate bargaining" if that designation changes.

The governor and lawmakers stopped short of mandating that schools reopen, leaving those decisions up to local superintendents and unions at the bargaining table.

Last week, Myart-Cruz called the state's reopening plan "a recipe for propagating structural racism," and railed against financially encouraging schools to reopen, saying that low-income communities of color would be unfairly penalized for their reluctance to return as they struggle with higher Covid-19 rates.

In addition to masking and social distancing protocols, all students and staff will be tested weekly for Covid-19. The district has spent more than $120 million to upgrade air-filtration systems, hire additional custodial staff and buy more personal protective equipment.

Other parts of the agreement include a daily school cleaning regimen, an "on-site Covid task force," full-day, in-person instruction for preschool students and maintaining current teacher assignments when possible.

“We know that educators have not been standing in the way of reopening," Myart-Cruz said in a news conference Tuesday. "A pandemic that has taken millions of lives across the world and close to 23,000 in Los Angeles County alone is standing in the way of returning to our beloved classes.”