East Bay school district considers shot rule
West Contra Costa could be among first in nation to mandate vaccination
West Contra Costa Unified, which serves more than 28,000 students in the East Bay, is considering a mandate that would require all eligible children in the district to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the district’s superintendent said Monday.
Teachers and administrators in California are already required to be vaccinated or submit to weekly coronavirus testing, and one other school district in the state so far requires students 12 and older to get their shots.
West Contra Costa Unified Superintendent Kenneth “Chris” Hurst said during a board meeting with trustees and teachers last week that his staff contacted officials at Culver City Unified in Southern California, among the first districts in the nation to issue such a mandate, to learn about their experience. Students there have until Nov. 19 to show proof of vaccination.
“That is the direction we are considering and strongly moving toward,” Hurst said during the
meeting.
In a follow-up statement to The Chronicle, he clarified that a mandate was not imminent.
“We have not taken any active steps toward mandating vaccination for students 12 years and older in WCCUSD,” Hurst said. “We are only investigating.”
News of the potential mandate comes as Bay Area school districts are looking at an array of strategies to keep students and teachers safe in light of the highly infectious delta variant. After the challenges of distance learning, districts are laser focused on how to keep cases down and classrooms open. To that end, San Francisco’s district recently announced plans to buy air filters for every classroom and Oakland switched to requiring students to wear masks outside.
While the COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective and school districts require a host of other vaccines for children to attend, the anti-vaccine movement in California has been vocal in schools before. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation closing a loophole that allowed parents to easily receive medical exemptions from vaccinating their children.
Representatives from West Contra Costa Unified, which operates 56 school sites in Richmond and its surrounding communities, said they are focused on keeping schools staffed and operational.
“We are working to ensure that students and staff are safe and schools remain open for 100% in-person instruction,” Hurst said. “We are actively recruiting qualified teachers to fill the remaining positions for schools.”
Ninety-three percent of teachers in the district are already vaccinated, according to district data. While data on what share of eligible students in the district are vaccinated was not immediately available, Contra County County has high vaccination rates.
“From the beginning, I’ve been an advocate for mandatory vaccinations for everyone,” said Richmond Mayor Tom Butt. “My take is you get vaccinated or stay home. If the district is looking into it, I applaud it.”
The federal government gave Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine full approval last week, but only for those 16 and up. It remains available for emergency use by 12- to 15-year-olds.
Dr. Michael Stanton, a professor of public health at California State University East Bay, said vaccine mandates at any level make a difference in the community at large.
In Contra Costa County, the seven-day average of new cases is currently above 35 per day per 100,000 people, and hospitalizations are nearing the levels of the winter peak, despite high levels of vaccination.
“Every single percent we can increase has almost an exponential effect on slowing the spread of the virus,” he said. In its first weeks of in-person instruction, which started Aug. 16, only 14 students and four staff members at West Contra Costa Unified schools reported coronavirus infections but no classrooms were closed.
The district currently recommends all students get tested weekly, per the county’s health department guidelines, and provides free weekly screening at all of its campuses. All students and staff members are required to wear masks indoors and outdoors at campuses.
Other school districts across the country have put modified vaccination requirements in place for students. The state of Hawaii has mandated vaccines for its high school student athletes, and New York City has a similar rule for students and coaches participating in a variety of high-risk sports.
“I agree with the general philosophy that it’s bad to close the schools, and we should try really hard not to,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chief of the Department of Medicine at UCSF, said. “You can keep the schools reasonably safe if everybody masks, if everybody who can be is vaccinated, and if you do weekly testing. It’s got to be the combo platter. It’s not one thing. You’ve got to do all of it.”