L.A. Poised to Issue Vaccination Mandate for Students

Los Angeles is poised to become the first major school district in the nation to mandate coronavirus vaccines for students 12 and older who are attending class in person.

The district’s elected Board of Education will meet Thursday afternoon to vote on the measure, which is expected to pass with broad support. The Los Angeles Unified school district is the second largest in the nation, serving over 600,000 students, and the mandate could set an important national precedent.

Students would need to receive their first vaccine dose by Nov. 21 and their second dose by Dec. 19, in order to begin the next semester fully inoculated. Those who turn 12 after those dates will have 30 days after their birthday to receive their first shot.

Students participating in in-person extracurricular activities will need to receive both shots by the end of October. The resolution mentions “qualified and approved exemptions” to the mandate, but does not offer details.

The district is offering an online independent study option for those who opt out of in-person learning this year, but so far, only a tiny percentage of students have chosen it.

The months between now and the vaccine requirement’s taking effect will allow the district to conduct outreach and educational programs for families. According to the Los Angeles County Department of Health, 58 percent of the district’s 12-to-18-year-olds have already received at least one vaccine dose.

Los Angeles Unified has been operating vaccine clinics in schools, and has the nation’s broadest school testing program, screening all students and staff members weekly. Masks are required for every individual on campus, both indoors and outdoors, and staff members must be vaccinated unless they qualify for one of the limited exceptions for serious medical conditions and sincerely held religious beliefs.

“Our goal is to keep kids and teachers as safe as possible and in the classroom,” said Nick Melvoin, a Los Angeles school board member, in a written statement expressing support for the resolution. “A medical and scientific consensus has emerged that the best way to protect everyone in our schools and communities is for all those who are eligible to get vaccinated.”

A key constituency supporting the student vaccine mandate is the city’s teachers’ union, United Teachers Los Angeles. Since the start of the pandemic, the group has pushed for stringent safety measures, and during the last academic year, a longer period of remote learning. Los Angeles and other districts in California were among the last in the country to reopen classrooms, and the union continues to ask for more aggressive quarantines for those exposed to the virus.

Initial data on infections at Los Angeles schools this year has been highly reassuring. According to a Los Angeles Times tracker based on district data, 1,620 active Covid-19 cases had been identified at schools as of Sept. 6; only 5 were linked to on-campus transmissions, at two schools.

While it is typically states, not individual districts, that mandate child vaccinations as a precondition of school enrollment, Los Angeles is not the first California district to lay out such a policy. The Culver City school system, a small district also in Los Angeles County, announced a student mandate last month, and other California districts are considering similar requirements.

Such efforts are likely to attract legal challenges.

The Food and Drug Administration has currently approved vaccines on an emergency basis for children 12 to 15 years old, but is expected to grant full approval in the coming weeks, which could pave the way for more school mandates nationwide.