Culver City Requires Student COVID-19 Vaccines — First In CA

CULVER CITY, CA — Culver City Unified School District is possibly the first school district in California to require students, teachers and staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

"We are mandating vaccines for all eligible staff and students," CCUSD Superintendent Quoc Tran said this week. "We will begin gathering vaccine status data immediately."

In addition to requiring vaccines, the school district will also offer weekly testing for students and staff regardless of vaccination status, Tran said in a letter this week updating parents, students teachers and staff on coronavirus protocols and health guidelines.

Since many students are not yet eligible for vaccines, masks are required indoors and outdoors, except at the high school as long as COVID-19 cases remain low, Tran said. Children 12 and older are currently eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.

And although school starts in a few days in Culver City, the deadline to provide proof of vaccine is Nov. 19, to give people who are not immunized yet time to make plans and set appointments, Tran added.

Tran was named CCUSD superintendent Aug. 10. He previously served as associate superintendent of educational services at Soledad Unified, and Alisal Union school districts, in Monterey County.

Culver City joins a growing number of cities, private companies, organizations and educational institutions mandating that employees are vaccinated. Los Angeles this week became the largest city in California to approve mandatory vaccines for employees, including the city's police officers and firefighters.

California became the first state in the nation to require vaccination or weekly COVID-19 testing for all teachers and school employees, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced this month. All schools across the Golden State must be in full compliance by Oct. 15

The move to ramp up vaccinations comes as the highly contagious delta variant continues to drive up cases this summer.

"If we want to end this pandemic and disease, we could do it in a month," Newsom said at Claremont Middle School in Oakland just hours after the city and San Francisco issued their own vaccine orders for teachers. "This disease is now a choice. The one thing that could end this pandemic once and for all is available in abundance to everybody that wants it. Regardless of your ability to pay, regardless of your immigration status: It's available today."

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