D.C. schools extend deadlines for covid, routine vaccination mandate - The Washington Post
Students in D.C. public and charter schools will have more time to comply with vaccination requirements this school year, the city's deputy mayor for education said Friday.
The city's top education official notified school leaders Friday about the change, designed to reduce the number of children who could be barred from school, as well as align the District's charter systems and public school district under a single enforcement timeline. The change comes a few days before the start of school and amid some concern that the mandate could keep students out of class, particularly Black students who lag behind their white classmates in routine and coronavirus vaccination rates.
Officials previously said schools should not allow students to come to class for more than 20 days without their routine vaccinations, against illnesses including measles and polio, or their coronavirus shots. But because schools across the district have different start dates — D.C. public schools reopen Monday and many charter school students have already returned — officials designed a timeline that would put everyone on the same page.
Prekindergarten through fifth-grade students who do not have their routine pediatric immunizations by Sept. 7 will receive an official notice from their schools. If they are not vaccinated by Oct. 11, they face exclusion from school. D.C. schools is not offering a virtual option for most students this school year.
Students in sixth through 12th grades will be notified about noncompliance on Oct. 3 and will need to be vaccinated by Nov. 4.
The city's coronavirus vaccine mandate, which applies to students 12 and older, falls under a different timeline. Students who are not fully vaccinated against the virus will by notified Nov. 21 and will need to comply by Jan. 3.
The city's youth coronavirus vaccine mandate has been nearly a year in the making. The D.C. Council introduced legislation in October that called for the vaccine to be on the list of immunizations required for enrollment in school.
The law stipulates that the mandate goes into effect only when the shot has received full authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. After that, students have 70 days to get the vaccine to remain in school.
But the 70-day window posed some challenges, particularly around tracking vaccinations, Paul Kihn, deputy mayor for education, acknowledged in a letter to school leaders. He wrote that he hopes the new Jan. 3 exclusion date will provide more time for schools to prepare and students to get caught up.
The District's coronavirus vaccine requirement is rare at this point in the pandemic when many workplaces, universities and school districts have moved away from such mandates. This week a D.C. Superior Court judge said a vaccination mandate Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) imposed on city government workers earlier this year was unlawful. And a group of three Republican congressmen sent a letter to Bowser this week asking her not to enforce the mandate for students.
The student mandate has also faced pushback in some quarters, particularly for its potential to keep students out of school. Seventy-two percent of kids between 12 and 15 have received their first two doses, data from the city shows. Teenagers ages 16 and 17 have a 76 percent vaccination rate.
There is also concern the mandate will have a disproportionate effect on children of color. Data published by the city show 53 percent of Black 12- to 15-year-olds are vaccinated against the coronavirus, compared to 87 percent of White students in that age group. Those numbers are lower than what the city reported last week.
But, excluding students from school can be avoided, said Bowser.
"It doesn't have to happen," Bowser said during an interview Thursday. "That's why we want everybody to take advantage of going to their own pediatrician, going to pop-ups and getting the required vaccine."
City agencies hosted a series of vaccination events and mobile health clinics this summer and will continue to do so during the first weeks of the school year, officials said. Students will also have the opportunity to get vaccinated at school-based clinics.
Officials in the District — and in school systems throughout the country — have long required students get certain vaccinations as a condition for attendance. Those policies, however, have not always been enforced. City leaders have vowed to change that this year.
"What we're concerned about, and what D.C. Health is concerned about, is the challenge if we don't do the enforcement. If we have a 70 or 75 percent immunization rate, that's low enough for us to be concerned about outbreaks," Kihn said in an interview on Thursday. "And so, what D.C. Health would say is, in order for us to get our immunization rates back up where they need to be for public safety and well-being, we actually have to do the enforcement."
The District launched an urgent effort this summer to get students vaccinated ahead of the school year. Officials in June reported that more than a quarter of the public and private school population — roughly 30,000 students — had fallen behind on the routine shots they need to legally attend school.
Kihn did not provide up-to-date numbers because current figures are inaccurate, he said. However he expects the city will report new figures in the coming weeks as enrollment settles.
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