At a 3 p.m. news conference (streamed live by the City and carried by LBREPORT.com), LBUSD Sup't Steinhauser provided details on the district's plans. Options for online and/or televised instruction are being explored and may occur but plans aren't finalized at this point. Child care won't be provided by LBUSD. A reporter asked "Are there any child care options being offered..? Sup't Steinhauser replied "Not in Long Beach Unified. We had to make this tough decision because it kind of conflicts with the whole issue of social isolization [isolation] so we chose not to do that at this time."
Mayor Garcia added "We understand at the City that one of the biggest challenge with closing schools that we've all discussed is low income parents that have to work and that don't have access to childcare so we understand this is a huge challenge, one that we're talking through, but the decision was made first and foremost as a health decision for the health of everybody." (The Mayor didn't offer any City of Long Beach response to what he acknowledged would be a "challenge" for low income parents.)
Let us know if you like the quick launch on-demand audio feature. We added it to our coverage of this event since Superintendent Steinhauser's statements were the most newsworthy portion of the news conference. We wanted to provide our readers with a way to get directly to coverage in detail with easily accessible podcast style audio. We also enhanced the audio to make the off-mike reporters' questions audible.
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