By Ali Tadayon, EdSource
Unprepared to add thousands of students to their independent study programs, several large California school districts opted this week to roll back their vaccine mandate deadlines.
Los Angeles Unified’s school board voted Tuesday to give students 12 and older until fall 2022 to receive both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine. By doing so they scrapped their original deadline of the start of the spring 2021 semester, Jan. 10, and aligned with the state’s vaccine mandate timeline.
West Contra Costa Unified board members followed suit Wednesday, voting to push the deadline back from Jan. 3 to Feb.18, while ramping up outreach to get more students vaccinated.
Though anti-vaccine and anti-vaccine mandate groups are declaring the deadline delay a win, school board members have made it clear that the decisions were not to appease them. Rather, as Los Angeles Unified school board member Jackie Goldberg said Tuesday, the decisions were made to avoid destabilizing the school environment for both vaccinated and unvaccinated students, since independent study programs like L.A.’s City of Angeles remain short-staffed.
“I want to tell those of you who come and say you think you’ve pushed us back: No, you didn’t,” Goldberg said. “The mandate remains.”
West Contra Costa Unified Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst said the district would not have been prepared to offer independent study to the 6,743 students 12 and older who had not verified their vaccination status as of Monday. The district’s independent study program, Vista Virtual Academy, already had a waitlist of 365 students this week.
Not offering those students independent study would have violated state law. Assembly Bill 130 requires districts to offer independent study for the 2021-22 school year to all students who sought it as an alternative to in-person instruction.
The state’s vaccine mandate will follow the federal Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the Covid vaccine for each age group and is expected to go into effect in July 2022.
Currently, only the Pfizer vaccine is fully approved for people 16 and older. The Pfizer vaccine also has emergency authorization for use in children aged 12-16. LA Unified, West Contra Costa Unified, Oakland Unified and others adopted even stricter timelines.
California Department of Public Health officials said they will be working with local health departments and districts throughout the state to ramp up student vaccinations in the coming months.
“We are hopeful many families will see the benefits of vaccination and move forward with the decision to get their children protected against this deadly virus,” CDPH officials said via email.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office said it is “closely monitoring” the vaccine mandates of districts that adopted stricter timelines than the state’s. Newsom’s office also decried the attempt by anti-vaccination groups to “politicize” the vaccine and the virus.
LA Unified school board member Nick Melvoin this week said the logistical nightmare of transferring thousands of students to independent study amid a national teacher shortage is the “result of lack of support from the state.”
Goldberg concurred that LA Unified might be in “a different place right now” if the state had given districts “more choices of what to do with the unvaccinated (other than long-term independent study) than they have thus far,” or if the district had received more funding to entice teachers with better pay.
State Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, said in an interview with EdSource that legislators will be looking at ways to help districts in this predicament during the upcoming legislative session. That means addressing how the state can help districts build up their independent study capacity and what rules may be making that more difficult. Legislators will also be looking to update rules around immunization, making databases more accessible to schools, so that vaccine verification is easier on families. As it is, families currently have to verify their children’s vaccination status with their district even though that information is already available at the state level.
“I’m sure (verification and independent study) will be a significant focus in this coming legislative session,” Pan said. “It doesn’t look like Covid is going away anytime soon. … We can’t have another school year still hampered because we haven’t addressed these issues. We need to get these kids educated.”
35-year-old-California resident: “Look, mom! I finally graduated High School!”
What is the teacher’s union doing to help solve this problem. (sarcasm)
By calling it an independent study program, they are admitting they are conducting an experiment.
Drugs used in study programs are given to large groups of people by researchers to confirm the drug’s effeteness, monitor side effects, and collect information that will allow the experimental drug to be used safely.
The government is using its citizens as guinea pigs, and those that got the shot, fell for it hook, line, and sinker.
Independent Study is what they have always called school from home. Been around long before COVID.
The best choice parents can make is to place their children in Private school or homeschool them. The far-Left Education Complex is more interested in political indoctrination than it is in actually teaching math, reading and writing.
Remember just a few months ago when we were told, “All three are fine vaccines and there are negligible side effects.’ Then we learn last week that actually the J&J vaccine is no longer recommended because of blood-clotting (which is what skeptics were saying all along).
How long before we get new info on the other “vaccines” just like all of the other moving data / info over the past two years.
(1) Don’t Wear A Mask – Wear A Mask – Wear two masks
(2) Virus is transmitted on surfaces – Sterilize – Virus not transmitted on surfaces.
(3) Airborne Virus – Not Airborne – Airborne
(4) Social Distance – 3 feet – 6 feet – 9 feet ?
(5) No Way its Man-made – Maybe its Man-Made – Probably Man-Made
(6) Two weeks to flatten the curve! Everyone is going to get it
(7) Only Hope Is A Vaccine – Need Booster – Need 2 Boosters
(8) If your Vaccinated don’t need Masks – Still Need Masks
(9) Let’s change the definition of “Herd Immunity”
(10) Let’s change the definition of “Vaccine”
(11) Travel Ban is Racist – Travel Ban is Necessary
(12) Natural Immunity Works – Does Not Work – Still Get Vaccinated
(13) No Side Effects – Some Side Effects – Stop giving J&J
Trust Us…We’re the Experts….We ARE SCIENCE.
Fauci did the same flip-flops during the AIDS epidemic in the early 80s.
He’s always been full of crap.
CDC has admitted that the J and J jab causes blood clotting disorders. As a result, the vaccine has been demoted to not-preferred status. But surely it’s still safe and effective, right?
I looked up the name. According to her mom, she was in Phase 3 of the teen vaccine trials in July of 2020, which was nearly impossible since those didn’t start until Nov. 2020.
July 2020 may have been phase 3 of the adult vaccine.
Dates and facts matter.
Look up Everest Romney who also claimed side effects but now is starring on his basketball team. Why aren’t more stories done about Everest overcoming the odds?
Japan’s ministry of health: “Although we encourage all citizens to receive the COVID-19 vaccination, it is not compulsory or mandatory. Please do not force anyone in your workplace or those who around you to be vaccinated, and do not discriminate against those who have not been vaccinated.”
https://bit.ly/3pcRLDu
Leave our kids alone!
All in all, it’s just a, another brick in the wall.
Meanwhile back at the flu…
Instead of these illegal mandates coming from the White House, perhaps some adults or real epidemiologists might try to devise a plan for these variants. It’s clear that those in charge are clueless on how to deal with thise other than the usual rhetoric of: Get vaccinated, Wear a silly mask, wash your hands, and social distance. The never ending biden clown car.
Reading through these individual quotes it seems these people are sort of bitter things haven’t gone their way. Somehow Covid and Education don’t appear to be their real focus.
Dear Concord Resident,
Wlad find much story about shot 20 January 2021. How find July 2020?
I think it’s medically unethical to ‘inoculate’ a child under this EUA therapeutic–using them as means to and end, which is reducing risk to elderly and immunocompromised group. I hope parents discuss at length with their pediatricians about the risk-benefit. If you have time, read this in depth article Why are we vaccinating children against COVID-19?
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8437699/
I highlight this from the conclusion:
“reflect only these very short-term results. A number of researchers have suggested the possibility of severe longer-term autoimmune, Antibody-Dependent Enhancement, neurological, and other potentially serious effects, with lag periods ranging from months to years. If such effects do turn out to be real, the children are the ones who will have to bear the brunt of the suffering. There appear to be no benefits for the children and young adults from the inoculations and only Costs.”
The school vaccine mandate was just stuck down in San Diego County, the ruling applies statewide.
https://tinyurl.com/yycb5xef
I fear this is only temporary. The insane legislators will undoubtedly pass a covid vaccine law eventually. Liberals seems hell-bent on injecting all kids (although they love aborting babies right up until delivery, go figure.)
@ Deb-
They are trying to sell kid vaccines as “protecting the kids”. The reality is that they really mean “vax the kids so the adults can’t catch it”.
For a child, the risk of death from Covid is nearly 0%. That means that there is essentially no benefit to vax a child, only costs. So why vax them? To ease the fears of knee jerk Chicken Littles.
The folks who demand child vaccines are of the same mindset as people who have children so that they can be used as organ donors. The left is full of non-thinking ghouls.
😏 You don’t say…
The narrative switched last week. Pay very close attention to what is being said now. I have been waiting for this…they are building a new narrative. Cory booker, liz warren, and jim cramer all day they have the omicron yesterday. These people are stupid.
It is called Parent teacher association (PTA) for a reason.
Parents remember the school answers to you!
If you as parent’s don’t make the curriculum and mandates go through you, then you have lost your kids! You are the parents they are not!
Research these vaccines independently not from TV corporate doctors (vaccine salesmen)! Allow your children to grow a strong immune system!
Do not be intimidated by tv, friends, or family. You are in charge of you and your children. Stay STRONG!!!
Given that vaccines are increasingly poor at slowing down the spread, and that the state constitution enumerates a right to an education provided by the state, and that “distance learning” is a total fiasco for most … one hopes that the political winds are shifting enough to make them back down permanently on this. But if they do it will only be because they realize this issue is a loser for them in terms of political power for the teachers’ unions.
But gosh, what disgusting little petty tyrants these people are. “I want to tell those of you who come and say you think you’ve pushed us back: No, you didn’t,” Goldberg said. “The mandate remains.” Gross. It is just morally disgusting that people with this kind of small tyrannical soul are in charge of *anything* in a free society.