Back To School
A School District Takes A Bold First Step
To take on the threat posed by the Delta Variant, the LAUSD will require their staff, but not students, to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
“Your child will wait for another child to die.”
- Dallas County judge
COVID-19 morphed from a public health crisis to a political one a long time ago. Masking and social distancing should have been readily accepted as a common-sense way to keep an airborne virus from spreading but somehow these became appropriated as symbols of “persecution” by the Trump Cult. The mere sight of a masked citizen is enough to send some of these believers into a violent frenzy as displayed outside a Tennessee school board meeting where a mob attacked a parent and demanded that he remove his mask. Others, like Herman Cain, bravely refused to wear one, becoming a martyr in the war against science.
Now with the arrival of highly effective vaccines, we should be beyond that need to wear the hated masks. Instead, anti-vaxxers turned them into another symbol of “oppression” and refuse to take the step necessary to protect themselves and, thereby, allowing variants to spread. Instead of celebrating a return to normalcy, we are watching cases spike again. Not surprisingly in areas where the percentage of people vaccinated is the lowest the latest surge is hitting the hardest, but the unvaccinated and immunocompromised are at risk everywhere. This includes all children under 12 as they prepare to return to school.
Given this evolving threat, the country’s second-largest school district has announced that in an effort “to provide the safest possible environment in which to learn and work, all district employees will be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 15.” This requirement will apply to all adults who are on school campuses regularly, “including outside contractors and parent volunteers.” To date, students will not be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 to attend school. However, they are required to be immunized against Varicella (Chickenpox), Polio, Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Hepatitis B, and Haemophilus influenzae type b.
The union representing teachers, UTLA, has worked throughout the pandemic to ensure that district policy kept both teachers and students safe. Understanding the risk posed by the Delta Variant, the UTLA Board of Directors “voted overwhelmingly to support a vaccine mandate for all LAUSD employees.”
Parents Supporting Teachers, the largest parent-led education advocacy group in Los Angeles, called for the LAUSD to go further and urged “policymakers, union leaders, and school officials to mandate vaccines for all eligible LAUSD teachers, staff members, and students.” Co-founder Jenna Schwartz, an LAUSD parent, explained that mandatory vaccinations are “absolutely necessary to protect the most vulnerable members of our communities — children under 12 [for whom a vaccine is not currently available] and those who are immunocompromised.”
The LAUSD’s policy and any chance of expanding the mandate to students are in danger if the recall effort against Gavin Newsom is successful. Front runner Larry Elder has already stated that his Trump-Republican-centered platform prioritizes the elimination of both mask and vaccine mandates. This would all but ensure that California would join Texas and Florida in the surging numbers of COVID-19 cases and schools would be prohibited from fully protecting their students.
_____________________________
Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for students with special education needs and public education. He is an elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and serves as the Education Chair. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.