California Response to Mandatory Vaccine For In-Person School
December 7, 2021
In the beginning of October 2021, California became the first state in the US to require vaccines for schools, which caused a major outbreak of concerned parents and on Oct 20, some parents kept their kids out of school as a form of protest. Online school can be very isolating and detrimental to students’ mental health. — Carly Wolf, senior
As soon as the FDA approved the vaccine for grades K-12, California Governor Gavin Newsom made the vaccine mandatory, considering the fact that students of those ages already get shots for viruses such as measles. However, California parents argue that their children should not be forced to get vaccinated in order to be allowed to attend school and play sports. The San Diego Unified School District responded to this by checking the attendance on October 20 vs. that previous Monday which seemed to only go down by roughly 2%. The majority of school districts in California alone recorded that 95% of students returned to in-person school for the 2021-2022 school year and that 64% of students 12 years and up have received at least the first dose of the vaccine and that more than 57% are fully vaccinated. The mandatory vaccine not only applies to students, but also to school staff. The Poway Unified School District had multiple bus drivers absent on the day of the protest, leaving around 500 students without a ride to school. “Online school can be very isolating and detrimental to students’ mental health,” said senior Carly Wolf. Although the battle against COVID-19 is seemingly never ending, every day is a day closer to when life may return back to what it once was.
