Families Express Jubilation, Frustration as Elementary Kids Return to Campus After a Year

Lynn Rodriguez’s daughter, Ruby, and John Edwards’ daughter, Mikayla, were both elated before their first day on campus at Westport Heights Elementary

After more than a year of campus closures, many elementary school families across the district celebrated a return to campus this week, expressing feelings of jubilation and relief. Other families, however, experienced frustration with logistical barriers and the realization that even some of the youngest LAUSD kids would be receiving Zoom from the room rather than in-person instruction. 

Jessica Posada's daughter Zulay was among those brimming with enthusiasm to see her teacher and friends as she returned to first grade at Stoner Avenue Elementary Tuesday. "It’s nice to see her so excited and happy to be back at school," Posada said. "And I think it’s time. It’s been over a year. And it’s been tough on the kids. I think a little normality, little by little, step by step, we’ll get back to how it was.”

Bri Giron’s daughter Brianna, 8, was also thrilled to return to Catskill Elementary in Carson, one of 61 schools that opened a week before the full LAUSD elementary reopening this week. But after those fantastic first days back, her excitement turned to dismay when a COVID testing issue forced her daughter and her teacher to stay home from school on Monday. 

Parents are responsible for securing a negative COVID test for their kids prior to returning to campus, but LAUSD had promised to take over the weekly testing from there. In Giron’s case, a mobile testing van visited Brianna’s school twice last week but left both times without testing her daughter’s class. The school informed Giron late Friday, and she scrambled to get her daughter a COVID test at CVS over the weekend. 

Results were not ready by Monday so she kept her daughter home. Even more upsetting, Giron said Brianna was not allowed to attend school online, either. “She had a perfect school record, and now she has one absence,” Giron said. “It’s been very upsetting. Our children should not be penalized for the district’s inability to be organized.”

Parents also reported waiting in long lines at some school COVID testing sites lasting up to three hours, and some got turned away during the crush in the days leading up to reopening. Some parents faced lost test results or difficulty uploading third party test results to the Daily Pass website, which allows kids access to campus. Culver City Unified also suspended asymptomatic COVID testing on Tuesday after reporting a large number of false positives, and LAUSD staff told the board Tuesday that the district is now developing protocols for false positives, which may be affecting kids who suffered from infections at an earlier date that have since cleared. 

Marini Smith’s son, Noah, missed his first day back on campus after LAUSD mixed up his COVID test results.

Speak UP parent leader Marini Smith said her son missed his first day back at Canfield Elementary last week after LAUSD incorrectly coded her son’s test results under the name of her husband, who is an LAUSD employee. After spending hours on the phone trying to sort it out, they scrambled to get a second COVID test, but results did not come back in time. Her son was also not allowed to attend school online that day.  “I made him practice his flute,” Smith said. 

South L.A. parent Tunette Powell also found it impossible to upload third party COVID test results to the Daily Pass website. She eventually gave up and just brought her son to Baldwin Hills Elementary with test results in hand but found that most of the classmates he had expected to see were not there. 

“Not everybody can afford to just show up and hope it works out. Only one other student was in Jordan’s class yesterday. He still sang these words in the shower: ‘Thank you for letting me go to school today,’” Powell said. “I’m still trying to figure out how to get that test uploaded...I find it so frustrating that this partnership with Microsoft gave, yet again, another system that isn’t friendly to families.” 

Many parents also took to Facebook to vent after learning at the 11th hour that their elementary school students would be receiving Zoom from the classroom rather than the in-person instruction that LAUSD promised. Parent Lauren Phillips was one such parent whose daughter, Lola, was looking forward to starting kindergarten and meeting her teacher in person. The day before school started, she learned that the teacher would be Zooming into class from home because of a medical exemption.

Lauren Phillips was devastated to learn that her kindergarten daughter was returning to campus only to Zoom from the room.

“It is so outrageous,” Phillips said of LAUSD’s policy. “We should be doing everything to make sure kindergarteners aren’t sitting on a computer.”

Lola’s teacher is one of about 1,400 LAUSD teachers (out of 33,000 UTLA members), according to the Los Angeles Times, claiming an exemption allowing them to continue teaching at home. LAUSD Chief Human Resources Officer Linda Del Cueto confirmed to Speak UP that a teacher with a medical exemption “continues to instruct their students online, and a trained substitute supervises the in-person student cohort.”

Phillips was also upset that parents were not informed of this Zoom-from-the-room plan before they opted for in-person instruction. And once she made that choice, she was told she could  not change classes or opt back into at-home learning for another two weeks. When she raised her voice in opposition to kindergarten children Zooming from class, she was initially met with the frustrating response from the school: “This is the LAUSD protocol.” 

“It really is upsetting,” she said. “All I want is my daughter to get three hours of a normal kindergarten experience. I don’t know what we’re going to do. The principal will not let us switch back to online.” 

After Phillips took the issue to Board Member Nick Melvoin’s office, the substitute ultimately was allowed to teach the kids in person rather than having the kids do Zoom, but then Phillips said her daughter was back on Zoom again Wednesday. She is so disappointed by the experience that she is considering moving her family to Santa Monica Unified, where kids are returning full time at all grade levels without hybrid instruction this month. Other parents at nearby LAUSD schools are complaining that they are also facing the same elementary Zoom-in-the-room issue.  

Despite these challenges, many parents reported that the return to school was smoother than expected. Any fears they had were eased when they saw how the schools were handling safety protocols. And the biggest complaint was the desire for more in-person schooling than LAUSD was offering.

Waiting on the sidewalk in front of Westport Heights Elementary on her daughter’s first day of in-person kindergarten, Lynn Rodriguez said that her experience with COVID testing and logistics were “pretty seamless.”

“It was easy for me to make an appointment,” she said. “It was very clear. They pushed out information a lot. We’re ready. It’s time for the littles to be back on campus. The research shows  kids are better than adults at following all the rules around social distancing and keeping their masks on. She was so excited to come.”

Daynira, whose son, Jose, is in first grade at Stoner said she felt “kind of scared,” at dropoff the first day, “but it will be better for him. I think he feels a little frustrated at home. It was one year doing the virtual classes, and it was really kind of hard for him. Hopefully he has a great day.”

John Edwards said his daughter Mikayla was “very happy and excited” to start TK. His only wish is that the kids would get more time in school to help working parents manage. "It’s a short period of time," he said. "Once it gets longer, it will be a little easier to navigate my day.”