L.A. is a bastion of music education in public classrooms compared with most of the country, where participation in the arts largely depends on whether your parents can pay for it.
As students return to school after holiday travel and festivities, respiratory illnesses are at high levels in Los Angeles and the JN.1 Covid strain has become dominant. LAUSD and the LA County Department of Public health suggest parents follow these guidelines for determining when a child should be home, come to school and how to stay healthy.
California had among the highest increases in chronic absenteeism in the country, about 1 million additional students were chronically absent when compared with the year before the pandemic.