School districts ask state to keep COVID vaccine belief exemptions
Education officials in Placer, El Dorado and Yuba counties have sent letters to Gov. Gavin Newsom, legislators, the California Department of Public Health and other state leaders, urging them to maintain religious and personal belief exemptions for the student COVID-19 vaccination mandate expected to take effect starting in mid-2022.
Yuba officials’ letter, sent Thursday, makes three requests:
• State leaders “clearly inform” the public that the mandates come from statelevel decisionmakers.
• The state identify benchmarks to end the mask requirement at K-12 campuses.
• The state “maintains the medical, religious and personal exemptions with regard to the COVID-19 vaccination requirement.”
In a similar letter dated Nov. 9, El Dorado County schools Superintendent Ed Manansala made those same three requests, along with a fourth item: County public health officials “should be provided the authority to adjust all CDPH guidance and mandates to fit local conditions.”
Placer County expanded on those four points with a fifth in its letter, also sent Thursday: School districts should have the option to continue routine COVID-19 testing “in lieu of mandatory vaccination for staff and school employees.”
Yuba’s letter is signed by county schools Superintendent Francisco Reveles and by the superintendents for Camptonville Union,
Marysville Joint Unified, Plumas Lake Elementary, Wheatland Union High and Wheatland Elementary school districts; El Dorado’s is signed by Manansala and the superintendents of 14 public K-12 districts; and Placer’s is signed by county Superintendent Gayle Garbolino-Mojica along with the superintendents of 15 districts.
Newsom in early October announced that California will require students to be vaccinated against the coronavirus once a vaccine is fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the appropriate age groups and that teachers will be required to be vaccinated by the same deadline.
“We are all exhausted by this pandemic,” Newsom said at the time.
Currently, Pfizer’s vaccine is fully FDA-approved for ages 16 and older. It received emergency use authorization for ages 12 to 15 in May and a kid-sized formulation was deployed under emergency authorization for ages 5 to 11 earlier this month.
Under the Newsom administration’s order, the vaccine requirements would separate K-6 from grades 7-12 and would take effect for each grade group in January or July to avoid implementation in the middle of an academic term. CDPH anticipates the requirement will begin July 2022 for grades 7 to 12, but has said it’s too early to predict when it will kick in for younger students.
Under California law, a school vaccine requirement imposed by executive or regulatory action rather than through the legislative process must include exemptions for medical reasons and personal beliefs, including religious beliefs.
However, the Legislature could remove personal and religious belief exemptions by simply adding the COVID-19 vaccine to an existing list of 10 immunizations that already are required to attend in-person K-12 schools, which include measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox.
California in 2015 removed personal belief exemptions for those school immunization requirements under Senate Bill 277, introduced by state Sen. Dr. Richard Pan.
Pan, in a statement issued shortly after Newsom’s announcement of the vaccine requirement, said he looks forward “to working with the governor on necessary legislation on vaccinations to keep our children safe in school when the legislature returns” in early January.
In Placer County, districts expressed concern that parents will withdraw students over the mandate if there are no personal belief or religious exemptions.
“We have received hundreds of emails and have heard many hours of public comment from concerned parents,” Garbolino-Mojica’s letter said. “They are voicing their request for a choice and their plans to withdraw their children from public school.
“In listening to our communities, we anticipate the implementation of a vaccination mandate without exemptions for medical and personal beliefs will deeply impact schools.”
As for the mask mandate in schools, California health officials have not given a specific timeline or conditions for removal. CDPH in an Oct. 20 news release said it would consider vaccination status in children, community case rates, outbreaks and other factors.
State Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly and CDPH Director
Dr. Tomás Aragón in a joint statement said the state “will continue to monitor conditions through the winter.”
They noted that more than 25 of the state’s 58 counties were, as of that time, experiencing “high” transmission of COVID-19, as defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ghaly said winter “is not the time to let our guard down.”
Newsom and state health officials have pointed to universal masking and robust vaccination rates as the best way to keep classrooms and campuses open for in-person learning.