The mandate required COVID shots for hundreds of thousands of students.
QUICK FACTS:
- A Los Angeles County judge ruled on Tuesday that the school district does not have the authority to mandate COVID-19 vaccinations.
- The mandate from the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) would have mandated vaccinations for hundreds of thousands of area students.
- Judge Mitchell Beckloff of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County sided with a parent whose 12-year-year-old attends a North Hollywood school.
- “The [mandate] is not merely about how education is delivered or who may be physically present on campus as the court previously viewed it. Instead, the [mandate] dictates which school the student may attend, and the curriculum he may continue to receive,” the judge wrote.
- Under the mandate, in order to attend school in person, all eligible students aged 12 and older must present proof of COVID-19 immunization or get exemptions by Jan. 10, 2022.
- Those who don’t comply will be moved into City of Angels, the district’s online learning program, which combines live instruction and self-study.
THE SUIT’S CLAIMS:
- The parent, identified as G.F. argued that it was both unfair and unlawful for the child to have to lose his place at a competitive school because their family chose not to get vaccinated due to personal beliefs.
- The parent argued that his son acquired natural immunity during recovery from the COVID-19 virus and that he was concerned his child’s life would be in jeopardy if he received the vaccination.
- “Either I get him a vaccine that I fear could harm him, or I send him to a virtual school that I know from experience and LAUSD’s own data would prove academically vastly inferior,” the father said earlier this year in a sworn declaration, reported City News Service. “The idea of dumping him into an online school, free of a rigorous academic program and torn away from his like-minded classmates, breaks my heart.”
BACKGROUND:
- The court’s decision does not have an impact on LAUSD immediately, since it was already put on hold after California Gov. Gavin Newsom put a hold on mandatory vaccinations for the time being.
- The governor said that the state will wait for the federal government’s full approval for the vaccines before administering the COVID-19 vaccination to young children.
