Los Angeles and San Diego schools to reopen in August with online-only classes

By Aaron Mamiit July 13, 2020

The Los Angeles and San Diego unified school districts will start their school years in August, but without students in their classrooms due to the risks associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The two largest public school districts in California said in a joint statement that countries where schools have reopened feature declining infection rates and the availability of on-demand testing, neither of which may be said about the state.

“The skyrocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control,” the school districts said in the statement.

The school year will start on August 18 in Los Angeles and August 31 in San Diego, as previously scheduled, but only online classes will be held for the safety of students and teachers. Both districts, however, will continue planning for a possible return to in-person classes within the 2020-21 academic year, once conditions are safe.

“We all know the best place for students to learn is in a school setting,” Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Austin Beutner said in an interview with the Los Angeles Times. However, he added, “We’re going in the wrong direction. And as much as we want to be back at schools and have students back at schools — can’t do it until it’s safe and appropriate.”

The announcement by the Los Angeles and San Diego unified school districts follows Education Secretary Betsy DeVos’ push for the reopening of public schools and in-person classes despite the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.

“American investment in education is a promise to students and their families,” DeVos told Fox News. “If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Tech News

Contributor

Aaron received a NES and a copy of Super Mario Bros. for Christmas when he was 4 years old, and he has been fascinated with…

Computing

Console performance just took a huge step forward

Jack in Immortals of Aveum.

Choosing between PC and console just got a little trickier because a feature that was previously reserved for PCs is now available on the Xbox Series S/X and PlayStation 5. The feature in question? Frame generation, courtesy of AMD's FidelityFX Super Resolution (FSR) 3. The tech did a superb job in the first tests on Xbox Series X, resulting in an up to 72% performance uplift in Immortals of Aveum. While this is a big step for AMD, and for console gaming as a whole, there are some downsides that underscore how this tech is still in its early days on consoles.

Upon the announcement that FSR 3 was now supported on all platforms as of the latest patch in Immortals of Aveum, Digital Foundry took the game out for a spin on an Xbox Series X, sharing its experience. The game, which normally tends to run at around 30 frames per second (fps) to 60 fps on the Xbox, saw a significant increase in frame rates, moving up from an average of 46 fps to 80 fps -- a 72% increase.

Computing

This might be the most ridiculous GPU I’ve ever seen

The MSI GeForce RTX 4090 Suprim Fuzion graphics card.

MSI just revealed what might just be the most ridiculous graphics card we've seen to date, and it snagged the Best Choice Award at Computex 2024. MSI's GeForce RTX 4090 24G Suprim Fuzion is an enormous GPU, and although it's equipped with just two fans -- a rarity for an RTX 4090 -- it may have the best cooling solution in MSI's arsenal, all thanks to the built-in all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler. Don't see any external radiator? That's because there isn't one. All the tubing and the radiator are tucked away inside the shroud of this massive beast. But how much will that really help?

It's safe to say that MSI went a little extra when it designed this GPU. With an integrated radiator inside the shroud, it looks quite unassuming at a glance, but don't be fooled -- this is a 4.5-slot behemoth that probably weighs a ton. MSI got rid of every single external tube and concealed the entire AIO cooler within the shroud, making the pipes 90% shorter than in traditional designs.

Mobile

MediaTek’s new smartphone chip looks like a beast

MediaTek Dimensity 9300 SoC inside Android phone.

MediaTek has typically played second fiddle to Qualcomm, at least when it comes to flagship Android phones in the U.S. But that may be set to change if the latest leak about the MediaTek Dimensity 9400 is to be believed. By all appearances, we have a chipset that may be able to compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Gen 4.

The news comes via Weibo from leaker Digital Chat Station and reveals that MediaTek is using TSMC’s second-generation 3nm N3E node, which should result in 34% lower power consumption. The Dimensity 9400 is expected to have MT6991 as its model number and keep the same large core structure as the Dimensity 9300.