LASD Board Highlights

Principal Narula and Principal Attell presented information on a new district program designed to help our most struggling learners in the distance learning environment: LASD+. The LASD+ program is designed for students who are at risk of poor academic outcomes and who could benefit from supervised distance learning. The program will serve students who have been historically disadvantaged, are performing significantly below grade level, have difficulty accessing virtual learning, and/or have persistently been absent or non-participatory in the new distance learning environment. Students will be invited to join the LASD+ program by their school’s CARE team (consisting of the school principal, psychologist and teachers) and their academic performance in distance learning.

LASD+ program will provide its participants a quiet place to learn and individualized support to improve their engagement, as well as academic outcomes. With greater individual engagement, the district will also be able to identify students who may benefit from additional social-emotional or nutritional support. Most importantly, student progress and achievement will be monitored to help ensure improved academic outcomes.

We welcomed our first cohorts of TK-1st Graders back to campus yesterday! It was a wonderful day of learning as students and teachers greeted each other back in their classrooms.

While we're very pleased with this milestone, we recognize the challenges that come with implementing complex health and safety measures to help prevent the spread of illness and keep our entire community healthy. We appreciate everyone’s attention to and cooperation with the LASD Community Expectations for Healthy Schools.

We have always believed that a slow and measured approach will result in a sustained reopening to ensure continuity of instruction for all of our students. For that reason, and now that we better understand the logistics required as we return students to campus, we have revised our reopening schedule for the rest of the grade levels. Please take a look at the updated table of dates below. Each returning group of students will continue to have at least a three-week separation of return dates to ensure health and safety protocols are in place and operations are running smoothly.

We have made three important changes to the return schedule:

1. We are shifting the return dates of the 2nd through 5th grade return by one week to better align with the academic calendar, including the end of the first trimester and the Thanksgiving break.

2. We are moving the return date for 6th through 8th graders to January. The decision to delay was not taken lightly, but the instructional programs for grades 6-8 are much more complex than for our TK-5th grade students. Students in grades 6-8 have multiple teachers specializing in each subject, which is very different from the single teacher lower-elementary stable cohort model, and it is taking longer than expected to determine the best way forward to ensure safety while delivering the best possible instruction.

3. We are altering the "program switch dates." As you may recall, our prior plan allowed families to switch between the blended and virtual models every six weeks. With experience we have learned that such a cadence is not sustainable for the teachers, staff and district office. Under the new plan, families can change their child's program to Virtual or Blended prior to their child's grade-level return date and then on two additional "program switch dates" available to all grade levels. We believe that this reduction in frequency of program switches will provide much more stability for all teachers and students.

We recognize that these changes may cause an inconvenience for our families and understand distance learning is difficult for many of our students. However, we also know that our families share our commitment to a safe return to campus with an excellent instructional program to continue our students' success.

As we continue to move forward, our principals and Superintendent will provide additional information on the academic programming for our 6th-8th grade students, including a presentation to the board at the meeting on Monday, November 9th. We will also plan to hold Parent and Staff Town Halls to answer questions and concerns before the Thanksgiving Break (tentatively, the week of November 16). Please stay tuned for more information. To check out the presentation to the Board on this subject, please take a look at the Reopening presentation under item H.1. on our agenda online. Please email Superintendent Baier at jbaier@lasdschools.org with questions or concerns.