Los Angeles to require shots for all students 12 and up

LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles board of education voted Thursday to require students 12 and older to be vaccinated against the coronavirus to attend in-person classes in the nation’s second-largest school district.

The move makes Los Angeles by far the largest of a very small number of districts with a vaccine requirement. Nearby Culver City imposed a similar policy last month for its 7,000 students.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, which has more than 600,000 mostly Latino students, already tests all students and employees every week, requires masking indoors and outdoors and has ordered employees to be vaccinated. Under the vaccination plan, students 12 and up who participate in sports and other extracurricular activities need to get their twoshot sequence completed by the end of October. Others have until Dec. 19.

“It is easy to wait for someone to tell us what to do. LA Unified is leading because we must. Our communities cannot wait,” Monica Garcia, a board member, said before the overwhelming vote in favor of the move.

“This action is not about violating anybody’s rights. This action is about doing our job to be able to offer public schools that children can come to school and be safe,” she said.

Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press Parent Evelyn Guillen, with her 3-year-old son, joins anti-vaccine protesters outside the Los Angeles Unified School District administrative offices in Los Angeles on Thursday.