The San Diego Unified School Board voted unanimously behind closed doors Tuesday to appeal a court ruling a day earlier that overturned its COVID-19 vaccination mandate for students.
“As our country and community enter a dangerous new phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the board of education met this afternoon and agreed to file an appeal to maintain our vaccination mandate for 16-year-old students in go ahead, ”the district said in an email to staff and families Tuesday night.
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“Vaccines remain the best way to protect the health and safety of our students, and we are one hundred percent determined to uphold the vaccination mandate.”
On Monday, San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer ruled in favor of Let Them Choose, an offshoot of the northern county parent-led group Let Them Breathe, which had sued San Diego Unified School District officials. Diego in October to end the district’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for students 16 and older.
Meyer agreed with Let Them Choose that school districts lack the authority to require vaccines in addition to those required by the state. He also agreed with Let Them Choose that any new school vaccination requirements, such as the COVID-19 vaccine, must allow personal belief exemptions.
The state has said it will require students to receive the COVID vaccine for in-person learning, but there is no official deadline yet and the state will, for now, allow students to take personal belief exemptions.
The San Diego court ruling means that thousands of San Diego Unified students over the age of 16 who are not vaccinated will not be expelled from face-to-face school as of January 24. About 20 percent of the district’s approximately 14,000 students ages 16 and older had not received the first dose of the COVID vaccine by December 15; her deadline for the first dose was November 29.
Under the district’s mandate, unvaccinated students would have been forced to learn at home through independent study and would have lost the opportunity to participate in extracurricular activities.
Let Them Breathe founder Sharon McKeeman said she doesn’t expect the district’s appeal to be successful.
“Let Them Choose is confident that we will prevail in an appellate court and we look forward to setting a binding precedent across the state that protects students’ rights to face-to-face education,” McKeeman said in a statement.
“Judge Meyers ruled in our favor on the clear legal issues that school districts have no authority to impose a patchwork of vaccines or contradict state law by rejecting personal belief exemptions, and we do not expect the appellate court to come to a different conclusion ”.
In its Tuesday email to staff and families, San Diego Unified reminded that it continues to require staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Monday’s court ruling only suspended the term of the San Diego Unified students.
As of Dec. 15, about 15 percent of the district’s 14,000 employees had not yet been vaccinated. The deadline for receiving the first dose and meeting the district immunization deadline was also November 29.
Staff who do not qualify for a medical or religious exemption from the mandate will be fired, the district has said.
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