
County met that threshold last Tuesday, when new state figures put the county's case average at 20 per 100,000 residents. In-person instruction has been unavailable to the vast majority of the roughly 1.5 million students in public and private schools countywide since March 2020, but the state permits elementary schools to reopen as soon as counties reach an adjusted average new daily case rate of 25 per 100,000 residents. Schools must meet a wide range of safety protocols before the can reopen to in-person learning. Schools got the option of returning to at least some form of in-person learning last week, after the county's rate of new COVID-19 infections dropped below the state's threshold for reopening campuses for students in pre-kindergarten through sixth grade. While some schools around Los Angeles County are allowing students up to the sixth grade to return to campus, LAUSD remains closed to in-person learning, as the district's teachers' union demands teachers and staff get vaccinations before returning. And, get breaking news alerts in the FOX 11 News app. Get your top stories delivered daily! Sign up for FOX 11’s Fast 5 newsletter. "In online school, it's really been hard to focus and have motivation to get on our Zooms every day and also study for tests," one LAUSD student told FOX 11's Sandra Endo. "What I want to do today is get everybody back in school, not just me but the little kids too because I feel like it's harder for them than me."

Students at the protest expressed the struggles they have faced with distance learning.


The parents involved said they are fed up with the teacher's union's demands and refusal to reopen schools. "Enough is enough! We can no longer sit by and wait for UTLA to come up with more excuses to keep our schools closed," the flyer for the protest reads.
