San Diego Unified School District has voted to delay their COVID-19 vaccine mandate until July 2023, but a parental rights group wants the school district to do away with the mandate entirely.
“It's already been ended in court,” said Sharon McKeeman, founder of Let Them Choose, a coalition of some 70,000 parents. “The only reason they're even trying to push it forward is that they are appealing the judge's decision and they are wasting taxpayer dollars by appealing.”
Let Them Choose sued San Diego Unified School District over its student vaccine mandate and, on Dec. 20, San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer ruled that it is the state legislature, not school districts, that have authority to mandate coronavirus vaccinations among students 16 years and older without a personal belief exemption.
While SDUSD is appealing Meyer's decision, the ban on their vaccine mandate was stayed by the appellate court.
“I am hoping SDUSD will just drop this appeal but if they continue to appeal, we will continue to hold the line there because we're not going to let them bully the community into putting a mandate in place that's illegal just because they are drawing it out for so long,” McKeeman told the Southern California Record.
Let Them Choose has also sued Granada Hills Charter High School and New West Charter School, which are two publicly funded charter schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), over their strict vaccine requirements.
“What they are doing is extremely discriminatory to these students,” McKeeman said. “They excluded students from the classroom earlier on in the semester. They are not allowing seniors to walk in outdoor graduation ceremonies if they're unvaccinated. They would not allow unvaccinated seniors to go to grad night or prom both of which were held in locations that do not require vaccine verification.”
A May 24 hearing was postponed until Aug. 18. School starts again on Aug. 15.
“The court has told us that if they get an opening, they'll move up the hearing before school starts,” McKeeman added. “We've worked very hard to uphold students' rights while Granada Hills and New West are outliers, especially now that Los Angeles Unified and San Diego Unified have both delayed.”
LAUSD unanimously voted on May 10 to delay their Covid-19 vaccine mandate until July 2023.