Los Angeles Unified School District announces Covid-19 tests for 600,000 students and staff to safely reopen
The second-largest public school district in the US has put together a "task force" in their efforts to address two goals: the safe return of students to schools and their right to education. As part of their ambitious plan, the Los Angeles Unified School District said it would provide Covid-19 testing to 600,000 students from kindergarten through grade 12 and school staff.
Along with contact tracing, the program will also investigate the impacts and effects of reopening. All of the data will be available to the general public. Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District's task force include scientists from the University California Los Angeles (UCLA), Stanford University and the Johns Hopkins University, Microsoft, testing experts, and healthcare companies Anthem Blue Cross and Health Net.
“Extraordinary circumstances call for extraordinary actions, and while this testing and contact tracing effort is unprecedented, it is necessary and appropriate,” Superintendent Austin Beutner said in a statement. “This will provide a public health benefit to the school community, as well as the greater Los Angeles area. This program will also provide significant education benefits for students by getting them back to school sooner and safer and keeping them there. We hope this effort also will provide learnings which can benefit other school systems and communities across the nation as we all combat this pandemic,” he added.
The schools have closed their doors for in-person instruction and reopening is still “some time away.” “The level of new cases in Los Angeles are still two and a half times the state guidelines, and while the portion of those testing positive is below state thresholds, it’s still considerably higher than the World Health Organization standards and those in place for New York,” Beutner told Los Angeles Times.
Still, the program took off on August 17. First, they will provide testing for staff already working in schools and their children. Later, Covid-19 screening will extend to students. “Determining an ideal testing strategy involves the application of epidemiologic principles and modeling informed by all available information,” said Dr Kristan Staudenmayer, Associate Professor and the researcher leading Stanford’s contribution to the efforts.
UCLA will study the impacts and effects of the reopening of schools. They will “share the information learned from these research efforts throughout the world,” said Dr Steven M Dubinett, Director of the UCLA Clinical & Translational Science Institute. Microsoft is contributing to the efforts by providing an application that not only tracks trends but also informs users of the potential risks. Clinical Reference Laboratory (CRL) and SummerBio will provide testing to support the Los Angeles Unified testing program. Anthem Blue Cross will help with research, while Health Net will support screening-related costs.
“Scientific studies emphasize the need for a robust and consistent testing regimen to keep students, teachers, staff, and the broader community safe as we return to classrooms,” the former education secretary Arne Duncan said. “We all know that children learn better in a class with a teacher, and we cannot deprive them of the education they need to lead us into tomorrow. We’ve never done anything like this before, but the future of public education depends on our success.”
Meanwhile, an Arizona school district canceled reopening schools after staff protested citing safety concerns. “We have received an overwhelming response from staff indicating that they do not feel safe returning to classrooms with students,” Gregory Wyman, the superintendent of the JO Combs Unified School District, said in a letter to families posted online Friday.