The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) has given its staff an additional month to fulfill its COVID-19 vaccine mandate because thousands of workers have not yet met the requirement.
Employees now have until November 15 to be vaccinated with two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's or Moderna's Covid vaccine, but they must report at least one dose by October 15 - the original deadline - to continue working in-person.
About one in five employees had not yet provided proof of their vaccination as of September 27, the Los Angeles Times reported.
The public school district is also one of the only school districts in the country to require vaccination for students ages 12 and up. Students must be fully vaccinated by late December to attend in-person class in January.
So far, high vaccination rates and other safety measures such as weekly testing appear to be keeping cases low in the district with a test positivity rate of 0.1 percent as of Tuesday.
The Los Angeles school district has extended its vaccination deadline by a month, as many teachers and staff are not yet vaccinated. Pictured: A Los Angeles student receives a Pfizer dose at a local YMCA, August 2021
The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is the second-largest in the country, serving more than 600,000 students.
Like other districts in California, LAUSD has had a vaccine requirement for teachers and staff in place since mid-August.
LAUSD's mandate goes beyond the state requirement, however, by mandating vaccination without an option for weekly testing in place of the jabs.
This district is also one of the first in the nation to require vaccinations for eligible students, older than age 12.
But thus far, LAUSD has faced challenges in fully implementing its staff mandate.
The requirement stated that staff had until October 15 to be fully vaccinated, meaning they'd received the second of two Pfizer or Moderna doses.
Yet, as of September 27, about one in five employees hadn't yet provided evidence of their vaccination.
This could represent 'well over 10,000 people,' according to the LA Times.
Those 10,000 employees now have more time to get their shots: the deadline for a second dose has been extended a month to November 15.
'We don't want people to be out of jobs,' interim superintendent Megan Reilly told the LA Times. 'Our employees are one of the strongest assets that we have.'
Still, she asserted that 'we're absolutely adamant about keeping our schools the safest possible environment - and vaccinations are clearly the pathway to keeping them safe.'
LAUSD staff have time to
