Post 438: All Teachers and Students Should Be Vaccinated Before Schools can Reopen
I stand firmly with the teacher's union that all teachers should be vaccinated fro COVID 19 before schools can safely reopen. Even if it takes a couple of years to vaccinate all teachers and school staff, then schools remain closed that long until all teachers are vaccinated.
I used to work for LAUSD, so I know first hand how schools try to squeeze many students in one room at a time, and how schools try to maximize space and time by having a year round schedule, so the school building is full of students and teachers all year round. At LAUSD, the student population is growing not shrinking.
At LA Unified School District, there are so many students that LAUSD runs on a year round schedule. You have students who rotate using the same school building so that several school years can use the same building in one calendar year. As a result, at LAUSD, school run all year round with teachers on a rotating schedule. Some teachers start their school year in September; some in February; and some in the spring and some in the summer.
Also, LAUSD has a growing population of students that are growing exponentially each year. The school district tries to squeeze 50 students in one closet classroom at a time. Class sizes range from 35 to 50 students 8 periods a day. They use small trailers outside the school to squeeze in even more teachers and students because of the large growing population.
Therefore, LAUSD classrooms have NO space for social distancing and no matter how many masks or disinfectants you spray, with students squeezed into a very badly ventilated 'closet' or 'trailer' classroom, everybody can easily get sick, the students, the teachers, the staff and their families.
The only way for a large school system like LAUSD to safely reopen is for all teachers on all 4 school year shifts and all staff on all 4 school year shifts to be vaccinated. This can take several years due to the large volume of teachers, staff and the small supply of vaccine shots. LAUSD is just too big and just has too many students to be safe to reopen. Not only do faculty and staff need to be vaccinated, but students need to be vaccinated too.
Smaller school districts with more money and a much smaller amount of students have the funds and the space to social distance and to buy new ventilation for all school buildings, so they may be able to reopen their elementary school, but LAUSD has too little space and too many students to social distance as they squeeze students and teachers in like sardines on year-round schedules, therefore, LAUSD cannot reopen until all staff, all faculty and all students are vaccinated.
In the meantime, during the time the school is closed, parents will just have to make do in order to ensure that the teachers and staff health is taken care of. It is too much to ask a teacher to risk her health for her job. She may have a fragile husband at home or elderly parents who could get sick and die from COVID caught from the kids so waiting several years for everyone to be vaccinated is a small price to pay to save lives. Vaccinating everyone is the only safe way to reopen schools.
To read more about this issue go to this article:
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/reopening-schools-its-complicated-5368730/
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