If you think school closures are a thing of the past, think again. The Washington, D.C., school system adopted a vaccine mandate for COVID-19, as well as other diseases, known as “no shots, no school.” That means not only barring students from on-site instruction but not offering alternative online home instruction.
The city council and health bureaucrats were very proud of themselves. “None of this was ever meant to be punitive,” one council member told DC List. “It was always about, how do we protect the school community enough to keep kids in school.”
“Enough to keep kids in school”? Obviously, no one on the city council called across town to check with the CDC about their new guidelines that say school closings should only be considered in extreme circumstances.
Regardless, there was another small problem with forcing kids to get jabbed in order to attend school: about 40% of black kids don’t have a COVID shot.
“To reduce the number of students who could be excluded from school at any one time, and to align schools and LEAs [local education agencies] to one unified notification and exclusion timeline, we are implementing staggered enforcement based on grade band,” Kihn wrote to school leaders on Friday. “We have heard from many of you about the challenges of tracking enforcement for COVID-19 vaccinations … We hope that the January 3, 2023 date for first exclusions of non-compliant students will give schools and LEAs additional time to prepare and for students to get their COVID-19 vaccinations.”
Another problem is that the COVID vaccine has only been approved for kids over 12 years old. The FDA has yet to approve the vaccines for kids any younger except on an “emergency basis.”
It’s not just COVID vaccinations that are a problem. For some schools, it’s the routine childhood vaccinations against measles, mumps, and polio.
According to data from DC Health shared with councilmembers last week, 26% of D.C. public school students are out of compliance with routine childhood vaccinations. For some private and charter school systems, the rates are much higher: 92% of students in Briya Public Charter schools are missing vaccinations. Others like St. Albans School and the Edmund Burke School have 70% and 68% rates of non-compliance, respectively. Schools in Ward 3 have the most students missing vaccines out of any ward, according to the data, with a non-compliance rate of 36%. Wards 7 and 6 have the highest rates of compliance, with 24% students enrolled in schools located in those wards missing vaccines.
The data did not include COVID-19 vaccination rates by school, but city-wide data suggests that compliance rates look similar. As of Friday, 72% of 12-15 year-olds in the city had received two doses of a vaccine, and 76% of children ages 16-17 had completed a two-dose series. (Boosters are not included in the city’s vaccine mandate.)
It’s worse when you break those numbers down by race. According to Reason.com’s Liz Wolfe, “Though 87 percent of D.C.’s white teens, between the ages of 12 and 15, are vaccinated, only 53 percent of D.C.’s black teens are. For the next age group up—comprised of 16- and 17-year-olds—89 percent of white teens are fully vaccinated, whereas only 58 percent of black teens are.”
Obviously, there would be a lot of empty classrooms if this policy were enforced. Reluctantly, the school system came to the conclusion that the mandate would have to be delayed.
It’s my guess that the vaccination rates are higher, but because of the gross incompetence of the school board, many students’ information simply wasn’t entered.
What are they going to do when those numbers don’t get any better? They’re not going to keep thousands of black kids from attending school and not offer online instruction. My guess is they’ll shut the schools down and go to all-remote learning. Anything is better than seeing nearly half the black kids in D.C. schools running around with nothing to do because they didn’t get jabbed.
Source: PJ Media
