The Long Beach Unified School District will close schools starting Monday, March 16 and will resume classes April 20, officials have announced.

“The closure is an extra measure of protection to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, or COVID-19,” a message on the district’s website said Friday, March 13. “We do not have any presumptive or confirmed cases of the new coronavirus in our schools, but we are taking this step to help protect public health.”

The decision came shortly after the Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified school districts announced they would also close schools. Later Friday, the L.A. County Office of Education said it asked all 80 school districts in the county to close.

“I can only remember a few times that we’ve ever taken such drastic action,” Superintendent Chris Steinhauser said during a Friday afternoon press conference. Two instances that came to mind were the 1933 earthquake, when half the district’s schools were destroyed, and the civil unrest in the 1990s, when schools closed for a week.

This time, schools will be closed for 19 instructional days.

Long Beach Unified is the third-largest school district in the state, behind LAUSD and SDUSD. It includes 85 schools and serves more than 71,000 students. It is also the city’s biggest employer, with more than 10,000 people working for the district.

LBUSD officials will work to support students and families throughout the closure and will provide meals for students who rely on them.

Steinhauser said every school will offer grab-and-go breakfast from 8 to 9 a.m. and grab-and-go lunch from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. each weekday through Friday, March 20. Students will not be allowed to eat on campus.

After March 20, the district will reassess and possibly move to “cluster centers” to distribute meals, Steinhauser said.

LBUSD intends to continue instruction, through online learning, hard-copy packets and textbooks. About 12% of students don’t have internet access at home, Steinhauser said, so hotspots will be available to those who need them. Teachers will also be flexible with assignments for students who may not have the necessary accommodations to complete schoolwork at home.

One thing that Long Beach Unified will not provide is childcare. Steinhauser said that was a “tough decision” to make, but ultimately, the public health concerns won out.

To help prevent the spread of COVID-19, experts recommend maintaining 6 feet of distance from others. Offering childcare while maintaining that standard, the superintendent said, wouldn’t be feasible.

“It would kind of conflict with the whole issue of social isolation,” he said, “so we chose not to do that at this time.”

For Leslie Brown, a parent at Cubberley K-8 School in East Long Beach who works outside the home, the childcare conundrum has resolved itself; her husband’s office just announced he’ll need to work from home.

“It wasn’t too long ago she was starting school and I was worried about missing her,” Brown said of her daughter. “Now I’m wondering what I’m going to do with her home for five weeks.”

For Dustin Dodds, another Cubberley parent, the solution is less clear. He and his wife own a dental business and cannot stay home with their three young children. They also would prefer not to have the kids stay with their elderly grandparents.

They don’t know what they’ll do.

Chris Callopy, executive director of the Teachers Association of Long Beach, said Friday afternoon those questions — and more — remained unanswered.

As for whether instruction would continue during the shutdown, Callopy said it was hard to imagine a way to reach all students without having them congregate, even with the hotspots.

“If you’re dealing with families who don’t have computers and don’t have internet access, then that’s an equity issue,” Callopy said. “We have such a large population that’s living in poverty. What are we going to do for those families?”

According to the California Department of Education, about 68% of the district’s students qualify for free or reduced-price meals.

The families who don’t have internet access are also the ones who likely don’t have access to childcare outside of school, Callopy said.

“Is that going to leave a lot of these children unsupervised during the day?” Callopy said. “There’s not a real solution that is far-reaching for everyone. Our community is so diverse.”

Callopy said he also had questions about what the closures would mean for the long term; it’s still unclear, he said, whether the state will extend the school year into the summer to make up for the lost time.

“What about state testing? Is that going to get pushed back?” he said. “That’s a big gap you’re talking about, a month of instruction.”

As so many questions linger, Callopy said, his office would remain open and update its website with new information as soon as it comes in.

“This is all uncharted waters,” he said.

COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease 2019, is caused by a virus named SARS-CoV-2. Symptoms associated with the respiratory disease, which appear two-to-14 days after exposure, include fever, a cough and shortness of breath. While most people — including healthy young adults — will experience mild symptoms, the disease can be severe and possibly fatal for at-risk groups, such as the elderly and those with other health problems.

Steinhauser, for his part, said the gravity of Friday’s decision wasn’t lost on him.

“This was a very difficult decision,” he said. “Schools are an essential service to our families and our entire community.”

Staff photographer Brittany Murray contributed to this report.