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All LAUSD Staff Will Be Required To Be Vaccinated By October 15

Desks spaced six feet apart in a classroom at Panorama High School in the L.A. Unified School District. The nation's second-largest school system hopes to welcome back middle- and high schoolers to campuses in late April.
Vaccines will now be required for all LAUSD staff without an option to opt out through weekly testing.
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Kyle Stokes
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LAist
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On Friday, the Los Angeles Unified School District announced that all staff will be required to get vaccinated by October 15.

This follows orders from Governor Gavin Newsom mandating vaccines or weekly testing for all staff at California's public schools.

The LAUSD mandate goes a step further, making vaccination a "condition of continued employment/service," meaning staff cannot opt out of vaccination by taking a weekly test.

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If an employee desires a religious or medical exemption, LAUSD said they "will still engage in an interactive process to determine if a reasonable accommodation exists."

Weekly testing will still occur for all employees, according to the district, regardless of vaccine status.

United Teachers of Los Angeles, the union that represents LAUSD educators, voted overwhelmingly in support of the vaccine mandate.

“Because of the protocols that UTLA educators and LAUSD families fought for and won, L.A. Unified has among the strictest COVID safety protocols in the country. But this Delta variant is unlike anything we have seen so far in this crisis — especially its impact on children — and we all need to step up to do our part to protect the most vulnerable among us,” said UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz in a press release.

This comes on the heels of rising positive COVID-19 cases due to the delta variant and a return to in-person school for LAUSD students on August 16.

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