They shot a commercial at a closed elementary school. Parents are livid.

For the first time in nearly a year, kids were back on campus at Kester Elementary School in Sherman Oaks. But they weren’t students, and they weren’t there to learn. They were actors in a commercial shoot for Apple TV.

Like most schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District, Kester is closed because of the pandemic. Students are being taught virtually. The sight of unmasked child actors roaming taxpayer-funded school grounds while the real students are stuck at home was too much for some local parents to bear.

“Parents are outraged by this,” mother Jenny Hontz told CBS Los Angeles. “It’s absolutely clear that LAUSD has their priorities wrong.” 

The school district issued a statement in response to the controversy:

Filming on school district property is subject to state and county health standards, which are different than those which allow schools to provide in-person instruction. State rules currently allow filming at schools even though those same schools do not meet the state rules to reopen.