Note: This is the email Supt. Andrew Pulver shared with the Los Alamitos Unified School District community regarding the dismissal of school for the remainder of the year.
Following the guidance of Governor Gavin Newsom and state education officials, it is with a heavy heart that I share with you that all our campuses will be closed to students for the remainder of the 2019-20 school year.

Our District facilities, classrooms, fields, playgrounds, tennis and basketball courts, and gymnasiums continue to remain closed during this time. We hoped to avoid these actions, but are following the necessary guidance to protect the health of our students, families, staff and the public by preserving physical distancing in our community and slowing the spread of coronavirus.

While we are devastated by this news, I am confident we will continue to unite to find ways to support and connect as a community to make the best of the remaining school year for our beloved students, families and colleagues.
We are closely monitoring the crisis and should conditions change and public health officials advise it, we would take full advantage of bringing our students and staff back for even a short period of time before the end of the year. We choose to keep hope and grace alive!

Meanwhile, the immediate, extraordinary effort of our teachers and staff in getting our online learning platform up and running at the very start of this crisis means that we are positioned well to see it through to the end.

As I have emphasized to you before, we know that the single most important factor in a child’s academic success is staying connected to school. To that end, we will continue training teachers, developing instructional content, and innovating our use of technology to provide the highest quality online learning experience we — and our homebound families — can manage during this pandemic.

We will continue to do it in a way that recognizes the wide disparity of time, resources and personal situations among our students, families and staff during this emergency. We will keep you updated after Spring Break about changes and enhancements to our distance learning practices.

We are truly fortunate that our early August school-start calendar means our students have completed about three more weeks of in-class instruction than many other districts in Orange County. So, while the emergency closures have disrupted learning, our deficit is much smaller than it might otherwise have been. During this period, we will continue to follow our normal school calendar for each site with schools ending for students on May 28 for all sites except Weaver, which ends on June 4.

Nevertheless, closing our campuses raises many questions about grades, commencement, college admission policies, registration, summer school, summer camps and much more. In the coming days and weeks, we will share with you information about these and other related topics.

While our classrooms will remain closed to students, our free Grab ‘n’ Go meal distribution program will continue, as will distribution of Chromebooks for any students who do not have access to an internet device. Please contact your principal if you have any technology needs. Visit our CORONAVIRUS AWARENESS page or LEARNING CONNECTION for ongoing updates, information and resources for students and families.

Finally, even though many of you are not surprised by the State’s decision to keep classrooms closed, I know that it is extremely disappointing and difficult news to deal with. It certainly is for me and our staff. I encourage you to talk with your children and other family members isolating with you. Listen to them and acknowledge how they are feeling. This crisis is beyond stressful and places unfamiliar demands on everyone. Now, more than ever, it will take all of us working together and actively supporting each other to meet this challenge.

Stay safe and healthy, take care of your loved ones and know that we are Better Together!

As it turns out, the little red wagon featured on the front page last week led us to a very different ending and a story that is a testament to the world in which we now live.

Moreover, it illustrates how much refreshing generosity still exists.

According to Betsy Hutchinson, the granddaughter of the woman who passed away, the little red wagon had been placed on the porch of her mother, Susan Ansorge, in Los Alamitos.

That’s because Susan’s mom, and Betsy’s grandmother, Doris Ryder, had passed away March 22.

“I am pregnant and home with young children,” said Hutchinson, and therefore only able to offer limited help,” she said.

Although Ryder did not pass away from COVID-19, she died after the pandemic set in and communities had been locked down.

Quite tragically, Ryder’s husband, Dr. Richard Ryder, had passed away in the pre-coronavirus world exactly one month earlier.

Dr. Ryder had been a well-respected Long Beach physician, and Doris, a longtime school teacher in the California school system. After 60 beautiful years of marriage, and even more years serving the community, they passed away exactly 30 days apart. They left behind three daughters, eight grandchildren and four great-great grandchildren.

Now, however, they were caught in a pandemic. Faced with a most solemn event, arrangements that seemed routine just 30 days ago now became a logistical nightmare. .

After making arrangements at Bethany Lutheran in Lakewood, they put the little red wagon out front and Betsy sent out a post announcing the family did not want to delay the funeral. “Tomorrow, we are still proceeding,” she said, asking neighbors flowers they would be “willing to donate for her burial.”

Flower by flower, plant by plant, neighbors began filling up the little red wagon and dropping flower arrangements on porch.

“Neither of my grandparents passed away due to COVID-19,” said Hutchinson, but the community reaction in a coronavirus world was the best testament her grandparents could have ever received.

“There are so many people affected by this and they are making sacrifices to save the lives of so many,” she said.

When Doris was laid to rest, attendees say mourners pulled up to the church, much like a drive-in theater back in the day. Hutchinson said the pastor came out with a portable megaphone and “shouted” a few lines to the mourners, all parked with windows rolled down.

Carson Denyer, the first chair trumpet player for the Los Alamitos High jazz  band, stepped out to play amazing grace, then the mourners waited for the Forest Lawn personnel as they eventually proceeded to the cemetery.

Karen Denyer, a family friend and Carson’s mom, said her son played taps at the gravesite as Doris was laid to rest beside her husband of 60 years, with friends and family paying final respects sitting in their vehicles near the gravesite.

“Please take the life lessons my grandparents passed to me and do your best to absorb them into your lives,” said Hutchison. “Always show kindness, be grateful, give generously, truly love and love as much as you can,” she adds.

“Put your family above all, love and care for your country, never forget how to laugh, never stop learning regardless of your age, and have faith,” she added.

“Our world, country and community has changed.. regardless of your beliefs. My grandfather was a soldier and saw war, and today we, the people, are at war with something much different. Everyone should reflect on how something so small can make a big difference in the lives of one another, said Hutchison.

At heart, the flowers donated spoke to something a larger issue..

“Flowers are such a small thing on the greater scale of what is going on, and for those of you that dropped off flowers, I am beyond and sincerely grateful,” said Hutchison. “It’s such a feeling one gets when friends, neighbors, and strangers are able to do such a little thing for someone else… to be able to touch a life in such a way. “Words cannot describe the feeling, I, or my family, has for your kindness. Thank you. We are doing this all together because we are ALL IN THIS TOGETHER.”

Seems like the little red wagon was filled with much more than flowers after all.