Letters to the Editor: Ex-superintendent’s tone-deaf criticism of LAUSD for closing schools after Hilary

To the editor: Yes, the Los Angeles Unified School District made the difficult decision to close campuses and keep students and employees safe on Aug. 21. But for former Supt. Austin Beutner to insinuate a lack of preparedness on our part, or that students didn’t have adequate resources, is irresponsible and out of touch with the current educational realities of L.A. Unified.

Since the pandemic, L.A. Unified has ensured that every student and employee has internet access as well as invested in the latest digital tools for all students to bring coherence and a continuity of learning.

Early Monday morning, the day after Tropical Storm Hilary struck Southern California, thousands of learning activities and assignments were posted online, and teachers pivoted quickly to offer dynamic online learning to students.

Robust educational programming was available on KLCS-TV. Our student and family wellness hotline was also operating. We served 47,958 meals.

Every regional superintendent in the district was in our community, helping our schools and families throughout the day. L.A. Unified leveraged both investments and lessons learned from the pandemic to prepare us for any emergency.

This new school year shows incredible promise — fully in-person, fully prepared to accelerate the success of every student. Support from the entire community is essential, and our students and families deserve nothing less.

Frances Baez, David Baca, Denise Collier, Jose Huerta and Andre Spicer, Los Angeles

The writers are, respectively, L.A. Unified’s chief academic officer, region north superintendent, region west superintendent, region east superintendent and region south superintendent.

..

To the editor: I am an LAUSD elementary teacher who is surprised by how tone-deaf Beutner’s op-ed article is.

If there’s anything we’ve learned from the pandemic, it’s that children are not adults. It is developmentally inappropriate to force children to sit on Zoom meetings all day.

Many children still suffer from anxiety and fear of school as a result of the pitfalls of at-home learning. We want students to enjoy learning again, and forcing them to complete cookie-cutter pre-planned busywork, or sit on Zoom all day, is simply not good teaching.

When the announcement came out that schools would close on Monday, teachers at my school were instructed to post relevant instructional directions for the day on Schoology, our online classroom portal. Students came back to school the following Tuesday with fantastic progress.

I know L.A. Unified is not perfect, but I hope we can unite in celebrating the good that did come out of what we learned from the pandemic.

It is good that we didn’t send students home with a district-made busywork packet. It is good that the teachers could be trusted as professionals to assign developmentally appropriate classwork tailored to their own students. It is good that we didn’t force students to act like everything was normal in the face of an extreme climate threat.

Allison Kelly, Los Angeles

..

To the editor: Parents claim to want control over their children’s lives, clamoring that schools are taking over functions that should be left to them.

Yet when given the opportunity to show care and concern for their children’s welfare, they complain about schools closing after a life-threatening storm.

John Snyder, Newbury Park