Los Angeles Unified, the second-largest school district in the nation, said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16 in an effort to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus outbreak sweeping California.

The announcement, made in a joint statement with San Diego Unified School District, came along with details of how closures will operate for more than half-million students soon after school officials called an emergency 7 a.m. meeting at the district’s downtown headquarters on Friday, March 13.

“The public health crisis created by the coronavirus is not something any of us could have reasonably expected to happen,” said Superintendent Austin Beutner in a Friday press conference.

“We are in uncharted waters as we work to prevent the spread of the illness. We’re now at a point where the balance has shifted and the appropriate path is to close schools.”

Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl and L.A. Schools Supt. Austin Beutner, talk prior to the morning press conference. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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L.A. Schools Supt. Austin Beutner, talks during morning press conference. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

L.A. Schools Supt. Austin Beutner, talks during morning press conference. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl speaks during press conference. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



Jefferson Crain, Executive Officer of the LAUSD Board, at Friday’s emergency meeting of the board. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

LAUSD Superintendent Austin Beutner and board President Richard Vladovic convene during a special emergency session on Friday, March 13. Photo: Dean Musgrove

Richard Vladovic, LAUSD board president, speaks during early morning meeting. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

Los Angeles Unified School District board members meet during a special emergency session early Friday, March 13. Photo: Dean Musgrove, SCNG

L.A. Schools Supt. Austin Beutner, talks during morning press conference. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)



L.A. Schools Supt. Austin Beutner, talks during morning press conference. Los Angeles Unified said it will close all schools for two weeks starting Monday, March 16, during an emergency meeting in Los Angeles on Friday, March 13, 2020. (Photo by Dean Musgrove, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

As of Thursday, the LA County Department of Public Health reported 32 cases and one coronavirus-related death, including those in Long Beach and Pasadena. The California Department of Public Health reported 198 cases and four deaths.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1,215 people have contracted the disease in the U.S., while 36 people have died from it. And the World Health Organization reported 125,288 cases worldwide and 4,614 deaths.

Beutner said there are no known cases of COVID-19 within school communities but given the official acknowledgement in rise of community spread, it is a “matter of time until which people are identified.”

Schools were open and in session Friday, after parents and students were told to take home any personal items and textbooks for the weekend.

Beutner said students across the district are being sent home by teachers with a two-week remote learning plan, some of which have been issued laptops to follow lesson plans online using learning management systems like Schoology already in place.

Students leave Cleveland Charter High School in Reseda on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Students leave Cleveland Charter High School in Reseda on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

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Sophomores Fiza Saeed, 16, and Lilit Akopyan, 15, leave Cleveland Charter High School in Reseda on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Students leave Cleveland Charter High School in Reseda on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Students are picked up from Hazeltine Elementary School in Van Nuys on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)



Students are picked up from Hazeltine Elementary School in Van Nuys on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Gladys Rios picks up her granddaughter Abigail Sims, 6, from Hazeltine Elementary School in Van Nuys on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Students are picked up from Hazeltine Elementary School in Van Nuys on Friday, March 13, 2020 after all LAUSD schools were closed to slow the spread of coronavirus. (Photo by Sarah Reingewirtz, Pasadena Star-News/SCNG)

Others will have access to instructional programming on public television stations. The district made an emergency purchase of 50,000 laptops scheduled to arrive Monday, said Beutner.

As neighboring school districts and L.A.-area private schools closed due to the outbreak, the overarching concern at L.A. Unified was the detrimental affect that closing schools could have on families that rely on the district for basic social services.

According to the district, 80% of LAUSD students qualify for free or reduced prince lunch, and 17,000 are homeless. They also estimate 50% of students lack a computer or tablet and 25% of families lack home internet access.

During the two-week LAUSD closure, the district plans to open some 40 family-resource centers to provide childcare and serve three meals a day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. The resource centers are slated to open Wednesday, and their locations will be released Monday.

Beutner said individuals who come to the resource centers will have their temperatures taken upon entry and be asked to wash their hands regularly. District staff will continue to be paid during the closure, and staff who work at resource centers will be given additional pay.

Efforts are underway to secure free MTA public transportation to the resource centers, Beutner added.

Because LAUSD receives state funding based on how many students attend school, the closure presents significant financial complications. Beutner said the district is hoping the state will step in to cover expensive of districts like L.A. and San Diego Unified.

A letter he wrote to the state Monday for an emergency $50 million to purchase additional laptops and broadband services for students went unanswered, he said.

On Thursday, leaders of the United Teachers Los Angeles union leaders joined a chorus of pressure to urge LAUSD leadership to shutter all district schools ahead of known COVID-19 cases within school communities. An online petition demanding the same garnered almost 50,000 signatures by Friday.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl commended Beutner and the school board for deciding to close schools. He said this situation, in which the district had to decide between keeping schools open “in a dangerous situation” and taking away critical social services by shutting them down, indicates the lack of an adequate social safety net.

“We have hotel workers, the parents of our students, who are facing being fired because of lack of business at hotels,” he said, taking the opportunity to note how the coronavirus is affecting local workers. “The federal and state government has a role in pressuring employers to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

In days leading up to the shutdown, Beutner had said LAUSD campuses would close only after cases of the illness COVID-19 were found in school communities — a policy he steered in coordination with county public health officials.

On Tuesday, the school board voted to give Beutner emergency powers Tuesday to unilaterally take steps in preparation for the outbreak that would otherwise require school board approval.

The district issued social distancing recommendations on Wednesday to cancel gatherings larger than the size of a classroom, from open houses to assemblies, field trips and professional development meetings. In addition, anyone who has traveled outside the U.S. in the last two weeks was no longer allowed on campus.

Beutner also announced on Thursday a district partnership with public broadcasting giants PBS and KCET to prepare instructional programming if schools close. PBS SoCal will be airing daytime programming for Pre-K through 2nd grade students and KCET for 9th grade through 12th grade.

The L.A. Unified shutdown follows several regional public school districts including the Santa Monica-Malibu, Los Virgenes and Simi Valley. L.A. area private schools including Oaks Christian, Buckley, Harvard-Westlake and Notre Dame in the San Fernando Valley closed days before.

The New York City public school district appeared to be facing similar pressures to close Friday. According to Education Week, at least 10,000 schools nationwide had been closed or were about to close by Thursday, affecting nearly 5 million students.

The vast majority of the county’s colleges and universities made the shift by mid-week, including Pepperdine, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Dominguez Hills, Loyola Marymount, Cal State Northridge, Long Beach City College and schools in the LA Community College District.

L.A. County Department of Public Health director Barbara Ferrer said Thursday that she was hopeful strict social distancing controls would be enough to limit community transmission of the virus.

“You have parents with very limited incomes who don’t get sick leaves at their jobs or are often working multiple jobs,” Ferrer told reporters at a press conference. “They can’t actually at this point put their child in a daycare setting when the school closes. So if there’s a way to keep schools open safely, our recommendation is we give it a really good try.”

Ferrer said the county public health department had turned to commercial lab testing facilities for assistance with a backlog of patients eligible for testing for the coronavirus, and that a rise in the number of cases should be expected.

The LAUSD school board was set to meet for an additional closed session meeting Friday at 1 p.m. to deliberate details of the school closures.

“This is not the first disaster of some sort this school district has had to deal with, but this is different,” Beutner told members of the news media.

“The most important thing right now is to make sure students go home today with a clear understanding of how they stay part of the school community and continue to learn as best as possible, that all of our staff know where they should be on Monday, and that we have our resource centers open and well stocked.”