L.A. school officials order sweeping student vaccine mandate, a first by a major district
All children 12 and older in Los Angeles public schools must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January to enter campus under an order approved Thursday by the Board of Education, the first such mandate among the nation's largest school systems.
The requirement cements the standing of the L.A. Unified School District as an early adopter of COVID-19 school safety measures that are wide-reaching and aggressive — a posture that has resulted in both praise and pushback. The nation's second-largest school system has moved faster and more comprehensively than most others in testing all students and employees for infection every week, requiring masks indoors and outdoors and ordering employees to get vaccinated.
L.A. schools Interim Supt. Megan K. Reilly said the student mandate was the next logical step to keep children, staff and community members safer from a COVID-19 pandemic that still poses significant risks.
"We've always approached safety with a multilayered approach: masks, air filtration and coronavirus screening," Reilly told The Times. "But we are seeing without a doubt that the vaccines are one of the clearest pathways to protecting individuals from getting severe sickness as well as for mitigating transmission of the COVID virus. It is one of the best preventive measures that we have at our disposal to create a safe environment at schools."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/la-school-officials-order-sweeping-student-vaccine-mandate-a-first-by-a-major-district/ar-AAOh0ii