(Los Angeles, CA) — More than 65-thousand Los Angeles Unified School District students and staff members won’t be on campuses for today’s first day of the spring semester. Sixteen-point-six-percent of students and nearly 15-percent of employees have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days, meaning they’re not cleared to return to in-person school. All LAUSD students and employees were required to take a COVID-19 test before today, regardless of their vaccination status. Curiously a school district that suffers from kids not attending, is making efforts to keep kids who do want to go to school, at home.
Further, LAUSD schools are funded based on ADA- average daily attendance, which in 2015 was about $51 per student in a seat. Assuming that of the 65,000 not in school, just 40,000 are students, that would mean the LAUSD is losing more than $2,000,000 today alone.