Los Angeles superintendent defends schools going online-only to start school year: 'Health and safety first'

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Los Angeles superintendent: We have to put health and safety first

Los Angeles Unified school district superintendent Austin Beutner responds to push to reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent Austin Beutner told "Your World" Tuesday that his district, the nation's second-largest, will start the 2020-21 academic year with online-only classes "because that's where health and safety take us."

"The rate of infection in our community is twice the World Health Organization guidelines for opening a community. So we've got to start there, and we know it's a struggle," Beutner told host Neil Cavuto. "We know we're balancing three sometimes conflicting objectives; the learning needs, the students, the impact the virus is having on working families in the communities we serve and the health and safety of all in the school community. We have to put health and safety first."

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The Los Angeles and San Diego school districts -- California's two largest in terms of enrollment -- announced Monday they will not reopen for in-person instruction when the 2020-21 academic year begins next month, but will plan for in-person learning as health conditions allow.

As of Tuesday, the state had reported more than 337,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 7,102 deaths. Los Angeles County – the country’s most populous – leads both the state and the country in number of confirmed COVID-19 cases with more than 136,000, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

When Cavuto asked Beutner if President Trump's claim that school districts which don't reopen are doing so for political reasons was accurate, the superintendent denied it.

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"We've got to get out of the politics and get into the realm of solving the problem, which is [that] we all want to be back in schools as soon as possible ..." Beutner said. "I think we could all agree on that. Let's focus on where the federal government can help get us back to school quicker. And if we look at examples around the world, they've done three things. Well, they've changed health practices in schools, they'll spread the desks apart, wear the masks, put down the painter's tape so people don't bump into each other in the hall, clean surfaces. That's been talked about a lot.

"The other two pieces, the other two legs of the stool are testing and contact tracing," Beutner said. "And we think until that's done in schools, it's going to keep us from getting back. But if we do it, we can get back safer and quicker."

Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly contributed to this report.