News Update

LA County officials grant 73 more TK-2 school waivers

LA County officials approved 73 more TK-2 school waivers this week, bringing the total to 147 elementary schools.

This waiver program allows in-person instruction for students in transitional kindergarten to second grade despite the fact that the county remains in the most restrictive purple tier amid an ongoing national surge in Covid-19 cases. 

Officials have increased the number of waivers granted, from 30 to up to 50 a week, in a rolling application process that began last month. Additional schools may be approved in any given week if there weren’t 50 approvals in earlier weeks. Priority is intended to be given to lower-income school districts and spread evenly across five supervisorial districts but many of the county’s neediest schools have not applied for the program for a range of reasons from safety to equity. 

The highest number of applications in a recent batch, for example, were from District 3, a region that includes neighborhoods with high household income, such as Beverly Hills and private schools have largely dominated the process.


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