LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Thursday to require students 12 and older to be vaccinated against coronavirus to attend face-to-face classes in the nation’s second-largest school district.
The move makes Los Angeles by far the largest of a very small number of districts that need vaccines. Nearby, Culver City imposed a similar policy last month for its 7,000 students.
The Los Angeles Unified School District, which has more than 600,000 mostly Latino students, already tests all students and employees every week, requires indoor and outdoor masking, and has ordered vaccination of employees. Under the vaccination plan, students 12 years of age or older who participate in sports and other extracurricular activities must complete the two-shot sequence by the end of October. Others have until December 19th.
“It’s easy to wait for someone to tell us what to do. LA Unified is a leader because we have to. Our communities can’t wait, ”council member Monica Garcia said before the vote.
“This action is not about violating anyone’s rights. This action is about doing our job to be able to offer public schools so that children can come to school and be safe, ”he said.
Los Angeles Unified was one of the last larger districts in the nation to reopen classroom instruction last spring. The teachers’ union opposed the measure for months, alleging health problems.
The student population of the district is nearly three-quarters of Latinos and many are poor. Among adults, poor Latinos are vaccinated at a rate below the state average.
Los Angeles County experienced an increase in coronavirus case rates in children from mid-July to mid-August, but has since declined, said Barbara Ferrer, director of the county’s Department of Public Health. . The change coincided with the reopening of many schools with safety measures such as masking and testing, he added, adding that bringing so many children to school could lead to more exposures and that officials will monitor closely.
Los Angeles School Board members overwhelmingly supported the plan, considering it a solid public health measure and a critical step in keeping classrooms open for face-to-face learning so essential to students. Board member Jackie Goldberg recalled when polio broke out at her school and her third-grade friend lost her arm.
“It’s moral, ethical, religious and political (choose a word): it’s our responsibility to protect children under 12 who can’t be protected otherwise,” he said.
There are no coronavirus vaccines authorized for children under 12 yet.
According to the LA Unified plan, all students 12 years of age or older will be fully vaccinated when they return to class after the winter break on January 11th. Those participating in sports and other activities must receive a first dose of vaccine before October. 3 and a second dose on October 31, while other students must get the first dose before November 21 and a second dose no later than December 19.
Some parents are eager to vaccinate all eligible students. Lucy Rimalower, who has a kindergarten in the district, said she is relieved: officials are taking steps to try to protect her child until she is old enough to receive the shot, and that also helps protect her children. parents, who are between 60 and 70 years old and help her with the care of their children.
“It’s like following the precedent of all other vaccines over time that have helped us have a safer school environment, which allows us to feel how safe it is to send our children to school without chickenpox, polio , mumps, measles, rubella, you say, ”he said.
Other parents oppose the move and believe it should be up to the parents, not the council, to decide what is best for their children. They noted that coronavirus has been much less lethal for children than for older adults.
“We don’t understand why you’re in such a hurry,” said Diana Guillen, chair of the district’s advisory committee for English students, in Spanish. “That decision should be ours, a family decision.”
United Teachers Los Angeles urged the district to provide public education and outreach to families and access to shooting to increase the number of immunizations in school communities. The teachers ’union had urged the board to order the vaccination of students once teachers had to receive the shots and applauded the move on Thursday.
So did the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. Between Aug. 15 and Sept. 7, about 8,000 cases of students and more than 1,200 cases of staff coronavirus were reported in the county, most of them at Los Angeles Unified, which conducts weekly tests, Ferrer said. He said this does not mean that the infections spread to schools and in fact many occurred elsewhere.
He added that more than half of county residents between the ages of 12 and 17 are already fully vaccinated.
“Raising those numbers is a key part of our strategy to keep schools open,” he said. “Widespread vaccination can drastically reduce transmission in all settings, especially and particularly in schools.”
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Taxin was reported from Orange County, California. Associated Press writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed.