As AUSD reported earlier this month, on October 1st Governor Newsom announced a new mandate that would require all students ages 12 to 17 to be vaccinated against COVID-19 once the FDA approves of those vaccinations.

Since that announcement, we have conferred with other districts in the county, our public health partners, and legal counsel about how this mandate might be implemented. Although we haven’t received a lot more information, we do want to emphasize that we are exploring a number of issues related to the mandate, including when it is expected to go into effect, how best to collect vaccination confirmation from families, and what options we will need to provide for students whose families choose not to vaccinate their children.

In the meantime, we have now fully implemented the vaccination mandate for employees that Governor Newsom announced in mid-August. That mandate requires school employees to either show proof of full vaccination or be tested weekly for COVID-19 by October 15. We have gathered proof of vaccination from about 90 percent of our employees, communicated the state’s testing requirement to the other 10 percent, and set up weekly reminders for that testing. Employees who do not comply with the weekly testing may face disciplinary action including being placed on unpaid leave of absence .

Just last week a joint statement issued by California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly, and California Department of Public Health Director and State Public Health Officer Dr. Tomás Aragón, reaffirmed the state’s approach to preventing COVID-19 in schools and protecting our students’ health – continuing the state’s successful masking requirements in K-12 settings.

Finally, we are aware that Pfizer has announced it will be meeting with the FDA to discuss granting emergency use authorization (EUA) for immunizing children ages 5 to 12 against COVID-19. That meeting is set to happen the same day as our Board meeting (October 26th), and we do not know quickly that EUA will be granted. Once it is granted, however, we are committed to working with the Alameda County Office of Education to set up more clinics to help families get their children vaccinated as quickly as possible.