In October, California became the first state to announce plans to require student vaccinations — adding the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of immunizations required for school attendance. “The state already requires that students are vaccinated against viruses that cause measles, mumps and rubella – there’s no reason why we wouldn’t do the same for COVID-19,” said Governor Gavin Newsom in an address at James Denman Middle School in San Francisco.
How has Lick-Wilmerding, which is a private school and not beholden to state regulations, responded to the question of vaccine mandates?
Of the 554 students at LWHS, all but three are vaccinated. Yet some say they are unaware of the school’s policy regarding COVID vaccinations.
“I’d like to know what the school is thinking in terms of vaccine policy, since it’s a really important health issue that I think a lot of public places implement,” said William Yu ’23. “I think it’s interesting how I’ll know about the vaccine policy in spaces like restaurants that mandate vaccines for indoor dining, but I’m still not super aware about the policy at my own school.”
The official policy, which was explained in a town hall to the LWHS community on August 10, 2021, is: “We strongly encourage all students to be vaccinated as soon as possible. Once the vaccine(s) receive full FDA approval we will most likely require vaccinations.”
Other COVID related safety measures are mandated by the school. At the beginning of this school year, masks were required at all times on campus, inside and outside. Masks could only be taken off outside when a student was eating. Now masks do not have to be worn outside, but always inside. LWHS requires all members of the community — students, staff and faculty — to take a COVID antigen test twice a week, which is more frequent than most institutions require.
Head of School Eric Temple explained how the school has worked to encourage vaccines, even though leaders did not require it. “What we did was reach out and give them resources of where they could get vaccinations and if they had any questions, where they could go for answers around the vaccinations, and encourage them to do so.” Last spring, LWHS hosted two vaccination clinics on the campus.
Temple said the only pushback he has received from parents about the policy was from those who were disappointed that vaccines were not being required.
Health Coordinator Mariah Kaitz clarified the vaccine policy, which was set at the beginning of the school year. “We couldn’t technically mandate a vaccine that didn’t have full FDA approval at the time. We obviously wanted to really encourage the vaccine, but we couldn’t enforce it. All of our emails, our reminders, and messages out to the community to push (students) to get the vaccine just in the best interest of our community, explaining that we could not enforce it.”
Kaitz said unvaccinated students (with negative tests) could be full participants at school but not necessarily at all school-related events. “There are going to be certain situations like field trips where outside organizations or locations or venues might require all attendees to be fully vaccinated.”
Kaitz said that LWHS is planning on mandating vaccines for the school year, for students, faculty and staff.
Some students voiced their support for a mandate, like Sydney Franklin ’23. “Vaccine mandates make me feel much safer when I go out places,” she said.
Yu agreed, “Mandates make me feel safer. Like at Outside Lands (music festival), They had vaccination requirements and it made me feel more comfortable being around a lot of people. Same goes for indoor dining. These are pretty big gatherings of people but it helps to know that everyone is vaccinated against the virus.”
Kaitz said she constantly answers questions for students “Communication around some of those things could be better, but I think we’re trying really, really hard to make it much more seamless for next year and even next semester.”
Kaitz also expressed pride in the way LWHS responded to COVID-19. “I think the way COVID was handled was really admirable. The way everyone seemed together to solve problems that accounted for everyone. Helped keep the student’s best interests in mind.”
Lilly Varon ’23, an immunocompromised student, agreed. She said that the way the school has handled COVID has made her feel more safe. “Testing twice a week has definitely lifted some weight off my shoulders because it’s just an extra precaution in addition to wearing masks inside. I also think that starting the school year off more conservative on masking and off-campus freedoms helped install a feeling of safety and responsibility for the students.”
Bay Area pediatrician Dr. Irene Moff says the mandates have encouraged a lot of people who were otherwise ambivalent about getting the shots. “I think the value of a vaccine mandate while they are hardest on the people who very intentionally are opposed to a vaccine. We find that there are actually quite a number of people who, for one reason or another, are either on the fence or haven’t gotten around to it. Or they planned on getting the vaccine, but were just waiting. It really bumps up the vaccine numbers.”
Moff is hopeful that enough people will be vaccinated that the COVID-19 virus will eventually become endemic, rather than epidemic. At that point, “it’s not causing severe, severe illness and death, it is just around kind of like the flu. Schools will have to figure out how much they continue to move activities outdoors or to limit large crowds versus just kind of going back to what we remember as pre-COVID” Moff said.
While the LWHS community is eager to put the pandemic behind them, talk of vaccine mandates is likely to continue as new variants arise and boosters become available.
