STUDENTS SKIP SCHOOL OVER VACCINE MANDATE
With several protests around the county, districts see varying effects on attendance
Hundreds of San Diego children skipped school Monday as part of a statewide protest of California’s upcoming COVID-19 vaccination requirement.
Some districts in the county reported higher-than-usual absences, while others said they were barely affected by the protest.
Roughly a third of Ramona Unified’s 5,000 students in North County, or 1,700, were absent Monday. Typically about 250 to 300 students don’t show during this time of year, said Superintendent Theresa Grace.
“I think the best place for students on a school day is in school,” Grace said in an email. “I respect parents’ right to voice their concerns about policy they don’t agree with or believe in, I just hate to see students miss out on instruction.”
In San Diego Unified, about 9 percent of the district’s 97,000 students were absent Monday, compared with about 7.6 percent who were absent the prior Monday, the district said; that’s about 1,300 more students out of class.
San Diego Unified School Board President Richard Barrera said Monday’s uptick in absences was “very small” compared with other districts. He said the bigger issue is that COVID-19 cases have disrupted student learning and lowered the district’s overall attendance rate, and the vaccine mandate is needed to help keep students in school.
“The much larger concern is the ongoing impact of the pandemic,” Barrera said.
The school protests had a dual effect, some district officials said. Not only do students miss out on learning when they skip school, but their schools receive less state funding, because it is based on student attendance.
At La Mesa-Spring Valley School District in East County, which enrolls about 11,000 students, attendance was 5 percent below normal, said Superintendent David Feliciano. The district had just returned from a two-week fall break, so it’s normal to see lower attendance the first day back, he said.
The district had 520 more students absent than usual, which equated to a revenue loss of about $29,000, he said.
Throughout the state, parents, students and some teachers joined rallies against vaccine requirements. In Sacramento, more than 1,000 people crowded the front steps of the Capitol.
Around San Diego, at least 200 people rallied on the Interstate 8 overpass at Grossmont Boulevard and Murray Drive, waving American flags and holding signs saying, “No to mandate, yes to choice” and “My child, my choice.” Families also rallied in Carlsbad at Magee Park.
About 200 people gathered for a “sit-out” rally at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park Monday morning. Jaclyn Holmes, a Santee resident with two children at Literacy First charter school in El Cajon, was among them.
Holmes said she thinks the COVID-19 vaccine is not needed, and she doesn’t like that it is being forced on people.
“It feels very anti-American to be, ‘My way or the highway,’ ” Holmes said.
She said she had her kids skip school “to teach them that it’s OK to stand up for what you believe in” and that “some things are worth fighting for.”
Cheri Silberberg has two kids attending Sunset View Elementary in San Diego Unified, which passed a COVID vaccine mandate with a faster timeline than the state’s.
All district staff members and students age 16 and older will have to be vaccinated by Dec. 20. About 69 percent of San Diego County youths age 12 and older already have been vaccinated for COVID.
Silberberg said her kids missed school Monday to show the school board she’s willing to pull them out of the district if they are forced to take the vaccine. Silberberg said she will home-school her children if necessary.
Silberberg’s oldest child is 10 and her youngest is 2. She said her whole family got COVID, so they have antibodies. She said it’s very rare for a child to die from COVID.
In advance of the sit-out, some schools sent letters home asking parents to send their kids to school. Poway Unified noted in its letter that it has no control over the state’s mandate, and the protest would hurt schools and students, not the state.
“While we understand that some families and students may have strong concerns and questions about the governor’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate, keeping children home from school would not hurt the state or its budget. Instead, it would only result in the loss of valuable learning time for our students and hurt our local schools,” the district said.
Out of 15,600 elementary students in the district, there were 352 unexcused or unverified absences on Monday, compared with 109 the previous Monday.
Newsom’s mandate, announced earlier this month, made California the first state in the country to say it will require the COVID-19 vaccine for schoolchildren once it receives full federal approval.
California students age 12 and up will be required to get the COVID vaccine after it becomes fully approved by the Food and Drug Administration for their age group. The mandate would be phased in starting with seventh through 12th grades, followed by kindergarten through sixth grades.
State officials point out that schools already require 10 other vaccines for school attendance, and the COVID vaccine has been proved to reduce chances of getting seriously sick or dying from COVID. A vaccine mandate would also keep more kids in school, state leaders say, because more vaccinations would lessen school disruptions due to quarantines and isolation.
Currently the Pfizer/ BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is the only vaccine available to children ages 12 to 15, but it has emergency use authorization, not full approval.