With the fall mester coming to an end, the students and staff prepare for changes being made to COVID-19 safety protocols and the offered academic coursework. 

The Los Angeles School District Unified attained a COVID-19 vaccination rate that exceeded 86 percent. This prompted the district to modify their health and safety protocols to become more lenient beginning Monday following Winter Break.

Starting Jan. 10, students attending Daniel Pearl Magnet High School will not be required to wear masks outdoors and the vaccinated students will not be given PCR tests during school hours. Contrary to the plan previously announced by the district, unvaccinated students will be permitted to continue their learning on LAUSD campuses up until the Fall of 2022. 

“We have very few unvaccinated people and we should not be impacted by it,” Petrossian said.

Petrossian said how no longer conducting PCR tests on the majority of students will free up time for the staff to support students on campus in other ways. However, he stressed the importance of the school not letting its guard down to COVID safety risks, even considering the high vaccination rate for the DPMHS campus.  

“I think for our case, it’s a big plus because we have quite a few of our students vaccinated, about 86 presently,” Petrossian said. “I think the change will positively impact us next spring.” 

When the new mester begins Jan. 10, there will be a multitude of new courses offered. The school will offer a pair of brand new electives, titled Chorus and Advanced Band and will accompany these two courses by an extensive list of classes that were not available in the fall but have been offered in past years at DPMHS. This category of courses comprises Spanish 3, Intro to Data Science, Honors Biology, AP United States History, AP Government, Honors Economics, Principles of American Democracy, Honors English 10 and American Literature.