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grades by March 31. With 9%
of California public-school stu-
dents in the LAUSD, the union
could put a significant dent in
Mr. Newsom’s goal of having
kids return to in-person learn-
ing next month.
With about 550,000 stu-
dents, Los Angeles trails only
New York City among the
country’s largest school dis-
tricts. New York’s public high
schools are expected to reopen
March 22 for some in-person
learning. The city aims to re-
sume full-time in-person in-
struction at all public schools
in September.
Cecily Myart-Cruz, president
of UTLA, has called the state’s
reopening plan “a recipe for
propagating structural racism”
because, she said, wealthier
schools with more white stu-
dents are in areas with lower
Covid-19 case counts and could
reopen safely more quickly. In
an interview, she said state and
local elected officials should
have set aside vaccine doses
for teachers earlier and said
she believes much of the push
to reopen schools is to relieve
working parents, not to do
what is best for children.
“Now educators are the
ones that have to prop up the
whole economy in California?
I beg to differ,” she said.
UTLA asked its 35,000
members to vote this past
week on whether to refuse to
return unless their demands
are met. About 91% of respon-
dents endorsed the union’s po-
sition, with 70% of the mem-
bership casting ballots.
Ms. Myart-Cruz has said
guidelines from the Centers
for Disease Control and Pre-
vention, whose director said
staff vaccinations aren’t re-
quired for a safe return to
campuses, don’t go far enough
to mitigate risk in large, urban
districts such as Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles dispute is
wearing on some parents. “It
just feels right now like this is
never going to end if the stan-
dard is so high for going
back,” said Lisa Fedak, a social
worker and former president
of the parent-teacher organi-
zation at Ivanhoe Elementary
School in the city’s Silver Lake
neighborhood.
“UTLA is trying to protect
the teachers at all costs and
it’s at the kids’ expense,” said
Ms. Fedak, who added that she
marched
alongside
the
school’s teachers during its
2019 strike.
Mr. Beutner, the district su-
perintendent, has been largely
aligned with UTLA on vaccines
and safety measures such as
air filters and regular Covid-19
testing.
But on Monday, he said the
district had done everything
necessary to allow students to
return to school and he
wanted to give families a clear
timeline on when that would
happen.
“We need a completed
agreement with United Teach-
ers Los Angeles,” Mr. Beutner
said, adding that he expects a
deal this week.
—Jennifer Calfas
contributed to this article.
LOS ANGELES—California
leaders say they are ready to
start reopening schools, but in
Los Angeles, whether and
when that happens is largely
up to the teachers union.
As in much of the U.S., many
parents in Los Angeles are ea-
ger for children to return to in-
person classes, particularly as
the region’s Covid-19 case rates
plummet after one of the worst
surges in the country late last
year. Los Angeles Unified
School District Superintendent
Austin Beutner, who wants ele-
mentary schools to open next
month, recently secured 25,000
vaccine doses from the state—
enough for all the teachers and
staff who work with children in
sixth grade and below.
But United Teachers Los
Angeles has remained non-
committal, and it is unclear
whether it will agree to return
to work before the end of the
school year. The union says
that in addition to the vacci-
nations for school staffers, it
wants Los Angeles County to
reach a lower rate of coronavi-
rus spread and for schools to
institute safety protocols in-
cluding social distancing, per-
sonal protective equipment for
teachers and staff, and better
ventilation in buildings.
The provisions UTLA is de-
manding go beyond those in a
$6.6 billion aid package—
signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom
last week—that would dock
some money from schools that
don’t
reopen
elementary
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