In a 6-0 vote, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s board voted to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for all its students age 12 and older who are attending in-person classes.
The mandate applies to all 460,000 students in the system, including independent charter schools housed in the district’s buildings. The board already mandated vaccinations for teachers and staff.
About 58% of eligible students have had at least one dose of the vaccine, but news reports blame vaccine hesitancy from “affluent, largely white, liberal parents … and conservative activists” for the numbers not being larger. One board member reported that about 60% of the contacts he’d had over the new mandate were against it.
But, he also noted that the opposition was probably a reflection of its “organizing strength.”
SOURCE: The New York Times September 9, 2021