The school board had tried to implement the mandate by January 10th of 2022, but with as many as 30,000 older public school students still not vaccinated, the board pushed back the mandate in a recognition of the impracticality of the two-tiered system.
Employees of the Los Angeles school district are already subject to a vaccine mandate, and the board voted to fire 496 personnel who have declined to get the vaccine.
The Los Angeles Unified School District had already lost as many as 40,000 students during 2021, with proponents of pushing back the vaccine mandating arguing that 30,000 more would destabilize the system even further. 87% of LAUSD students were already partially or fully vaccinated by the time the LAUSD board voted to push back the mandate on December 15th. Los Angeles Superintendent Megan Reilly made the frank admission that the school system would face serious repercussions if it purged 70,000 students in one year, with parents already growing increasingly skeptical of public schooling systems.
