Oakland Educators Approve A Plan To Transfer Or Unenroll Students Who Are Not Vaccinated By January

According to a proposal passed by the district's Board of Education on Wednesday, public school children in Oakland, Calif., who are 12 or older and have not been vaccinated against Covid-19 by January would be sent to an independent-study school or dismissed from enrollment completely.



According to a document issued by Oakland education authorities on Wednesday, students who are not vaccinated by the Jan. 1 deadline and do not have a legal exemption will be given a transfer to Sojourner Truth, the district's "long-term independent study school."

Unvaccinated pupils who refuse to be moved to that school will be dismissed "after ample information and opportunity to get the Covid-19 vaccination, as well as progressive warnings," according to the memorandum.
On Sept. 22, the Oakland Board of Education agreed to require coronavirus vaccination for kids aged 12 and above who attend school in person. According to the memorandum, the rule provides for exclusions for medical grounds, personal beliefs, and other legal reasons. Superintendent Kyla Johnson-Tramell was obliged by the board to offer suggestions on how to execute the directive by the end of October.

After more than a year of remote and hybrid learning, educators throughout the country are ready to restore in-person instruction and school activities as health officials increase vaccine eligibility for children.

According to the memorandum, educators in Los Angeles, Piedmont, San Diego, and Berkeley have approved vaccination mandates for children aged 12 and above since September. California Governor Gavin Newsom stated this month that kids of all ages across the state may be forced to get vaccinated in order to attend school next autumn, provided the Food and Drug Administration provides complete permission.

In California, some parents and kids have praised vaccination regulations, claiming that they will make schools safer. Other parents have claimed that kids and their families should be able to choose whether or not to be vaccinated on their own, and that mandates would be detrimental to unvaccinated pupils.

The Oakland Unified School District has more than 35,000 pupils. According to the district's website, more than 44% of students are Latino, 22% are Black, and 6% are mixed.
According to the Oakland memorandum, African American, Latino, and multiracial kids are more likely than others to be unenrolled due to the vaccine policy, based on existing vaccination rates.

Based on state data from mid-October, the district assessed that around 60% of its pupils aged 12 and older were partially or fully vaccinated in a letter released on Monday.
"We are currently reaching out to each family with a student who is at least 12 years old and whose vaccination status has not been confirmed by the state so that we can share information about where they can get vaccinated and update our records about students' vaccination statuses," according to the letter.

After examining two alternative choices, the district chose the enforcement strategy. Unvaccinated kids may attend school, but they couldn't participate in extracurricular activities like sports, field excursions, proms, or in-person graduation ceremonies. The other would have essentially postponed the student immunisation deadline until August 2022..