Back-to-School Today in Los Angeles Unified School District

It still feels like summer outside, but thousands of Los Angeles Unified School District students will be heading back to class today.

About 550,000 students in the nation’s second-largest school district will start school. Only one school in the district, Bell Senior High School, still operates on a year-round schedule. Those students went back to class on July 1. For everyone else, the alarm clock will be ringing early this morning.

District officials and members of the Board of Education will fan out across the area to welcome students back to class, stressing district goals of 100 percent attendance, parent and community engagement and school safety. They will also be checking seventh-graders to ensure they have been immunized against whooping cough. Seventh-graders without proof of immunization will not be able to attend classes.

Los Angeles School Police and Los Angeles Police Department officers are expected to be out in force around campuses to ensure student safety, and to ensure motorists are driving cautiously around kids walking to school. District officials said students walking to school should travel in groups, and young kids should be escorted by an adult or older students.

In conjunction with the first day of school, district officials will also be giving an update on the LAUSD’s My Integrated Student Information System, known as MiSiS, which has been beset with problems since the record- keeping computer system went online.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines said the district has gone to great lengths to repair the network while revamping instruction plans and teaming with teachers and parents to encourage the success of students.

“Despite the challenges we’ve faced, I’ve never seen so much excitement and enthusiasm for the start of the school year,” Cortines said. “Everyone has come together to help pick up the broken pieces of our schools and put them back together again.”

He said he was confident the MiSiS system will be running effectively as school starts, but a team of technicians will be on duty to address last- minute glitches.

Cortines said students will see more nurses, counselors and librarians at campuses, along with smaller math and English classes in secondary schools. He also stressed that unlike last year, when the district had more than 200 teacher vacancies, every classroom will have a permanent teacher, not a substitute, on opening day.

“We overcame a lot of challenges over the last year, and we will continue to overcome them, thanks to the inexhaustible determination of our entire LAUSD family,” Cortines said.

--City News Service