The Board of Education for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is planning to vote on a proposal Thursday that would require all students 12 years of age or older to get fully vaccinated for protection against COVID-19 by the end of this year.
The proposal would make LAUSD the largest school district in the country to create such a mandate for students.
Children with “qualified and approved exemptions and conditional admissions” would be exempt from the requirements. However, details on what those exemptions would be are not included in the Thursday meeting’s agenda.
The district has been proactive in trying to stem the spread of coronavirus since classes resumed last month. The district tests students and staff each week, requires masks for both indoor and outdoor activities, and already requires all staff to be vaccinated.
According to the proposal being considered, students 12 years or older who are in sports and other extracurriculars would be required to get vaccinated first, needing to get their first dose no later than October 3 and receive the second dose no later than the last day of that month. Those who are not in extracurriculars would have until November 21 to get their first dose and would be required to get their final dose no later than December 19.
That schedule would ensure students would be fully vaccinated before the return to classes after the winter break, which begins in mid-December and lasts through the beginning of January. Proof of vaccination would have to be uploaded and approved by the district.
Very few districts across the country have considered implementing such requirements for students so far, although a separate one in Los Angeles County, the Culver City Unified School District, has already announced that it will institute its own vaccination requirements among students 12 years or older.
The decision by Los Angeles schools to require students to be vaccinated may not be too much of a hurdle for parents and students to manage. As of noon local time on Thursday, more than three in five kids (63 percent) in Los Angeles County who are eligible have had at least one vaccine dose, local figures show.
Los Angeles Unified School District is the second-largest school district in the U.S., and its decision to implement vaccine requirements for students could influence other school boards to consider similar measures. There is likely to be significant pushback in other parts of the country to the idea, but polling suggests most Americans are open to vaccine requirements for students in public schools.
An Economist/YouGov poll conducted earlier this month found that 52 percent of Americans think kids who are eligible to be vaccinated should be required to do so in order to attend school. Just 32 percent are opposed to the idea, that poll found.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.