The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) released a cartoon video to inform students that they will need to fill out a health form each day before entering school buildings.
The video announced the release of the district’s “Daily Pass” idea which was created in partnership with Microsoft. The Daily Pass is a web page that asks students to check boxes each day confirming that they do not have symptoms of the novel coronavirus. After students complete a check-in, the website generates a “Daily Pass” which students can print out and use to enter LAUSD buildings.
In the video, the narrator asks, “has this conversation taken place at your home?” A little girl proceeds to tell her mom she’s afraid to return to school because she doesn’t want to get her parents sick.
“Mom, I’m scared about going back to school. I don’t want to get sick and I don’t want to get you and dad sick,” the little girl says.
The video proceeds to detail how students will need to take a COVID-19 test each week at school or at another testing facility.
this is a real video by Los Angeles Unified School Districthttps://t.co/7RFVLB6aqE
— Corey A. DeAngelis (@DeAngelisCorey) March 2, 2021
The video also claims that students will be able to schedule vaccination appointments on the app as well. There are currently no vaccines that are approved for children under the age of 16.
According to the LAUSD website, students will meet a “welcomer” each day at the front of school buildings who will scan their “Daily Pass” and take temperature checks.
The “Daily Pass” announcement comes after Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom announced plans to reopen schools. The plan includes cash incentives for schools that reopen quickly and safely.
Los Angeles schools are approaching the one-year anniversary of lockdowns. Despite negotiations, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) — the largest teacher union in California — has decried Newsom’s plan for reopening schools as “propagating structural racism.” The union insists that all teachers and staff get vaccinated before reopening.
The Daily Wire reported:
In a press conference Monday, the head of the UTLA claimed that the plan not only put teachers in danger of contracting COVID-19 but also perpetuated “structural racism.”
“We are being unfairly targeted by people who are not experiencing this disease in the same ways as students and families are in our communities. If this was a rich person’s disease, we would’ve seen a very different response. We would not have the high rates of infections and deaths,” UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz said, per Politico. “Now educators are asked instead to sacrifice ourselves, the safety of our students and the safety of our schools.”
The Chicago Teacher Union (CTU) and Washington Teacher Union (WTU) have made similar declarations that reopening schools is a form of racism. In a since-deleted tweet, the CTU claimed that the push to reopen schools was a form of “sexism, racism, and misogyny.”
A WTU leader claimed that reopening schools for in-person learning is a form of “white supremacy” and that concerns about students’ mental health are a form of “white privilege.”