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President Trump called the decision by Los Angeles schools to not reopen campuses next month a “mistake” during a CBS News interview on Tuesday. Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Austin Beutner announced Monday that the nation’s second-largest school system will continue with online learning until further notice because of the worsening coronavirus outbreak in Los Angeles. (Blume, 7/14)

“I would tell parents and teachers that you should find yourself a new person – whoever’s in charge of that decision because it’s a terrible decision,” he (Trump) said. “Because children and parents are dying from that trauma, too. They're dying because they can't do what they're doing. Mothers can’t go to work because all of a sudden they have to stay home and watch their child — and fathers.” ...The Los Angeles and San Diego school districts, which collectively enroll more than 700,000 students, both announced on Monday that they will start the coming school year online, vowing to return to physical classrooms when public health conditions permit. (Stratford, 7/14)

Kaiser Health News: California School Districts Grope For Sensible Reopening Plans 

School leaders in Elk Grove, California, wanted to leave as little to chance as possible. So they brought nearly 150 voices into their decision-making process, and canvassed the parents of the estimated 63,000 students in the district to ask how they wanted their children taught. The result was a four-item menu of instruction choices for the coming academic year, none featuring a full campus. About 45 minutes down Interstate 5 in California’s Central Valley, seven trustees in Manteca took a 5-2 vote: School would resume on campus, at full classroom capacity, five days a week. Parents would have the option to enroll children in a 100% online academy — although it didn’t yet exist. After a protest from teachers and the health department, the district later relented and agreed to put students on campus for five days every two weeks. (Kreidler, 7/15)

In a surprise move, Arlington Public Schools is scrapping a plan to offer in-person and virtual learning this fall and will instead require its 28,000 students to start the school year 100 percent online. The district’s superintendent, Francisco Durán, announced the switch in an email to families Tuesday afternoon, citing a recent increase in coronavirus cases nationwide. He also wrote that he is proposing that the school system push back the start of the school year by about a week to give teachers and administrators more time to prepare. (Natanson, 7/14)

Schools in North Dakota may reopen this fall for face-to-face learning amid the continuing coronavirus pandemic if districts approve and consult with local health officials, Gov. Doug Burgum announced Tuesday. School districts also must prepare online learning plans in addition to classroom instruction and a “hybrid” of the two, Burgum said. (MacPherson, 7/14)

Portland Public Schools has set a tentative Sept. 14 start date for the 2020-21 academic year, but the state’s largest district will only have students attend in-person classes two days per week, if at all. Students and families should be ready to go online beginning Sept. 2, as teachers will offer individual consultations and technology checks, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. (7/14)

As education leaders decide whether to reopen classrooms in the fall amid a raging pandemic, many are looking to a standard generally agreed upon among epidemiologists: To control community spread of the coronavirus, the average daily infection rate among those who are tested should not exceed 5 percent. But of the nation’s 10 largest school districts, only New York City and Chicago appear to have achieved that public health goal, according to a New York Times analysis of city and county-level data. (Goldstein and Shapiro, 7/14)

For generations, school has been an opportunity for American children to learn and make friends. For many parents today, though, it’s something that’s elemental in a very different way: a safe place that cares for their children while they are at work — or a necessity for them to be able to work at all. (Loller, 7/15)

As school districts consider how to approach learning this fall with no sign of the coronavirus slowing, the virus has already had devastating consequences in one rural Arizona school district. Jena Martinez-Inzunza was one of three elementary school teachers at the Hayden Winkelman Unified School District who all tested positive for COVID-19 after teaching virtual summer school lessons together from the same classroom. (Doubek, 7/14)