It's official: students will begin school year remotely

DOWNEY — Downey Unified School District has announced that students would be returning to full-distance learning at the beginning of the school year.

The announcement is just the latest in what has been a whirlwind couple of weeks for the district, which has struggled to keep parents satisfied with answers as coronavirus cases continue to rise and – subsequently – mandates and protocols rapidly change.

However, the district released a video Tuesday evening that seemingly sealed immediate plans for students.

“We all want our students back in school full time in bricks and mortar as soon as possible, but at this moment it is simply not a possibility,” said Board of Education President Donald LaPlante.

Governor Gavin Newsom announced this past Friday that schools within select counties throughout the state – including Los Angeles County – were ordered not to open their campuses and instead proceed online.

Schools in these counties will not be able to open until they have met certain public health benchmarks that indicates their county has been off of the monitoring list for 14 consecutive days.

“As of now, we are not a part of that criteria,” said Superintendent Dr. John Garcia. “It has not been met by Los Angeles County.”

“All of those Southern California counties on the watchlist – of which it is the vast majority of Southern California – will continue in a full distance learning mode as the new school year starts. For us, that means in mid-August.”

Garcia added that the second of the anticipated parent input surveys – which was delayed when DUSD’s previous hybrid schedule was forcibly shelved – would still happen.

“As we move forward, we will indeed issue a survey that will be more focused on distance learning,” said Garcia. “We will be asking our communities what they thought went well in the spring, what they thought needs improvement in the spring, and your ideas and thoughts about how we can get better for our students when we come back in full distance learning in the fall.”

Garcia said teachers and staff have already started preparations and training in anticipation of the new school year.