Vaccine uncertainty at S.F. schools
Nearly all teachers and other staff members in the San Francisco Unified School District who reported their vaccination status said they were fully vaccinated against COVID-19, district officials said, but the status of a significant number of their colleagues remains unknown.
Almost a quarter of the district’s nearly 10,000 employees failed to submit their vaccination status by Aug. 31, as required.
Of the 7,584 who did respond by the deadline, 96% said they were fully vaccinated, according to updated numbers released Friday. Workers did not have to show proof of their vaccination status, but had to complete a signed authorization permitting the district to disclose their vaccination status.
“It’s extremely encouraging to see such high rates of vaccination among our staff,” Superintendent Vincent Matthews said in a Thursday statement. “Our vaccine requirement is one of the many ways we are keeping our students, staff and families safe.”
Yet it’s impossible to know the total percentage of teachers and staff who are vaccinated since information for 24% remains unknown.
Last month, the district announced that all teachers and other staff must be fully vaccinated starting Sept. 7 or face weekly coronavirus testing, citing concerns about the delta variant and rising cases in San Francisco and the United States.
District officials released the status of staff vaccination days after a school board meeting in which several parents begged the board to adopt an even stricter protocol that would not allow weekly testing to replace vaccination. Parents pointed out that because children under 12 are not yet eligible for a vaccine, they are particularly vulnerable to getting infected.
The city of San Francisco is requiring its employees to be vaccinated — unless they have a religious or medical exemption — and will not allow regular testing to replace that mandate.
District officials said Thurs
San Francisco’s ability to respond to 911 and 311 calls was briefly constrained Friday morning due to a power outage.
The network outage lasted about an hour.
The executive director of the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management, Mary Ellen Carroll, tweeted at 9:10 a.m. Friday that power and normal capacity for calls had been restored.