Sacramento City Unified considering COVID vaccine requirement for students 12 and up
Sacramento City Unified School District is considering a COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students old enough to be eligible, and it appears to have support from the district’s board of trustees.
Student support and health services director Victoria Flores, county health officer Dr. Olivia Kasirye and others gave an informational presentation during Thursday evening’s school board meeting.
Flores laid out three “pathways” for the district. No. 1 would be to keep the current status quo: no vaccination requirements for students, and testing only for those who have symptoms or were in close contact with confirmed cases.
No. 2 would be to impose a vaccine-or-test requirement for students ages 12 and older, similar to the one the state has ordered for teachers. Eligible but unvaccinated students would face regular testing.
No. 3 would be a full vaccination requirement, with limited exemptions but no option for eligible students to test out.
The agenda item was informational only, with no vote. But four of the seven trustees on the eight-member board who were present Thursday evening said they supported No. 3, one preferred No. 2 and the remaining two didn’t explicitly take a position but signaled support for tighter protocols. Board President Christina Pritchett was not present.
“It’s the hammer of the tools. I just want us to be unafraid to use that hammer,” board member Leticia Garcia said of vaccinations. “I think we need to do everything we can in our district as elected officials to make sure that we have as many kids learning in person and that we keep as many kids in the classrooms as possible.”
Garcia along with board members Jamee Villa, Darrell Woo and Lisa Murawski called for a full vaccine requirement.
Board member Lavinia Grace Phillips said she leans toward No. 2, saying No. 3 “sounds extreme” and could lead to logistical problems. Student board member Jacqueline Zhang said she supports mandating testing for all students. Board member Chinua Rhodes, after the other trustees spoke, said the board understands “the direction our community would like to go” and that he looks forward to moving forward with a vote.
The board could move forward on a plan before the end of this month. Superintendent Jorge Aguilar called for a special board meeting Sept. 30, a week before the next regularly scheduled meeting, giving officials the next two weeks to begin crafting a resolution.
Thursday’s presentation came one week after Los Angeles Unified School District became the first major K-12 district in the U.S. to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine for students. Culver City Unified School District is the only other district in California to have done so as of this week.
How would SCUSD vaccine requirement work?
Under the third option, all students at least 12 years old would be required to be vaccinated with limited exemptions. Flores proposed a timeline of requiring first doses by Nov. 21, second doses by Dec. 12 and submitting immunization records to the district no later than Dec. 31.
“We would ideally, by the end of this year, have a significant population that would be fully vaccinated,” Flores said.
Students turning 12 would have to get their first dose within 30 days after their birthday. When a vaccine is authorized for use in children under 12, the district would revisit deadlines based on vaccine supply levels.
Those with approved exemptions would need to submit to regular testing. Unvaccinated students either without an approved exemption or who do not consent to regular testing would have to enroll in the district’s independent study program, Capital City.
Among district officials who spoke Thursday evening, the primary concern about the vaccination requirement was the stress it would put on Capital City, which has already struggled to staff early in the school year, if more parents elected to enroll unvaccinated students in the program due to the requirement.
The exemption process is another consideration.
“I would ask that we consider just making this right in line with the normal exemption process that we already have in place for all of our childhood vaccines,” Murawski said. “We have a long, long rich history of mandating many, many, many vaccines for our kids as a condition of school entry.”
K-12 students in California are required to be immunized against numerous diseases including measles, mumps, rubella, polio and tetanus. The state does not permit religious exemption for these immunizations; only medical exemptions.
The Food and Drug Administration last month granted Pfizer’s two-dose vaccine full approval for ages 16 and older. The vaccine remains under an emergency use authorization for ages 12 to 15.
Raoul Bozio, Sacramento City Unified in-house counsel, said a vaccine requirement is within the district’s legal rights.
“It is a power that is within the powers of a local jurisdiction, local governmental agency and school district to require certain health and safety measures in order to maintain the safety of its schools,” Bozio said.
COVID test demands, disenrollment and other concerns
Flores during her presentation laid out other pros and cons for the two newly introduced options.
For option No. 2, Flores noted it would “provide parity,” putting students eligible for the vaccine under the same requirement that California’s health department has ordered for teachers and school staff.
Under a state health order, California teachers and other school staff are required to provide proof of vaccination or submit to weekly testing for COVID-19, and required to be in compliance with that standard no later than Oct. 15.
Both the full vaccination and vaccine-or-test requirements would make quarantine decisions easier, Flores said, because those who are fully vaccinated have stricter criteria.
“Particularly if all those vaccination records are documented in our system, we can look it up like that and clear a student or a staff member (from quarantining) immediately,” she said.
A downside to No. 2 is that mandating regular testing for students who are not vaccinated could spike demand for test kits and leave testing supplies scarce. Already, Kasirye said in a public health briefing earlier Thursday, there is a nationwide supply shortage for rapid antigen tests.
Another concern trustees discussed about No. 3 is that some parents who oppose vaccine mandates may pull their children out of the district entirely, and that Sacramento City Unified might have to absorb more disenrollment — already an issue for the district before the pandemic.
Vaccine and mask mandates in schools have been divisive issues among parents during the coronavirus pandemic. But about a dozen parents and teachers who called in during a public comment following Flores’ presentation spoke overwhelmingly in support of requiring vaccines.
One parent went a step further and called for “Pathway 4”: requiring vaccination and regular, mandatory testing for all students, saying this would ensure the safest environment on campuses.
Sacramento has ‘not done very well’ vaccinating children
Sacramento City Unified resumed in-person learning on most of its campuses Sept. 2, the latest start among major districts in the region. The district of about 40,000 students had confirmed 214 COVID-19 cases as of Thursday: 150 among students and 64 among staff.
Kasirye, the health officer, said during her presentation to the school board that the county as a whole still has “a lot of work that we need to do in order to increase vaccinations.”
“When you look at school age children, 12 to 17 or 18, that are now eligible for vaccination, we have not done very well,” Kasirye said.
About 47% of county residents ages 12 through 17 are fully vaccinated, compared to 53% of eligible juveniles statewide, California Department of Public Health data show.
One of the first campuses in the district to open — New Joseph Bonnheim, a charter elementary with 270 students and 23 teachers — had an outbreak of about two dozen virus cases within the first month of its Aug. 9 opening. Kasirye initially recommended a campus closure, but instead opted for wide testing.
This story was originally published September 17, 2021 at 10:36 AM.
