(CALMATTERS) – Faced with the prospect of tens of thousands of students being pushed into remote learning for not complying with school vaccine mandates, many districts are delaying deadlines — or scrapping them altogether.
On Tuesday, the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education will consider moving its inoculation deadline from Jan. 10 to fall 2022 — a move that comes not long after Newsom strongly suggested it “work to accommodate” the 34,000 unvaccinated students at risk of being forced into online learning. West Contra Costa Unified has also proposed delaying its Jan. 3 vaccination deadline to July 2022, Oakland Unified recently extended its deadline from Jan. 1 to Jan. 31, and Culver City Unified removed its mandate after 17% of students failed to meet the Nov. 19 inoculation deadline. And although Newsom’s statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate isn’t set to go into effect until July 2022 for the first batch of students — and also allows medical, religious and personal belief exemptions — some rural schools are warning it could result in 50% of students fleeing the district or opting for online learning.
Meanwhile, the San Diego high school student who secured a short-lived ban on the district’s vaccine mandate asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday to issue an emergency freeze that would block it from going into effect; Justice Elena Kagan directed San Diego Unified to respond by Dec. 16. Also Friday, the city of Beverly Hills and Los Angeles County were hit with a lawsuit from two Beverly Hills firefighters who argue the county’s first responder vaccine mandate violates their constitutional rights.