COVID Vaccination
On November 19, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Western States Scientific and Safety Review Workgroup endorsed and provided Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) allowing the use of a lower dose of Pfizer/BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine with children ages 5-11.
To date, the vaccination rate for students in Manhattan Beach ages 5-11 who have received one or more dose is 57.9% - with a full vaccination rate for this age range at 24.7%, and 90.2% of students ages 12-17 are fully vaccinated.
In addition, on Wednesday, December 8, 2021, the FDA expanded eligibility for booster shots for 16- and 17-year olds, and the CDC encourages individuals in this age range whose second dose was 6 or more months ago to receive a booster shot.
To find out about availability of boosters for anyone age 16 and up, or to schedule vaccination appointments for anyone age 5 and up, parents are encouraged to visit California’s myturn.ca.gov website.
Our schools’ health and safety efforts are focused on ensuring our ability to continue to support and provide daily in-person instruction for our students. The vaccine authorization for students ages 5-11 can provide these students the same protection against COVID that fully vaccinated older students and adults receive, and full vaccination will provide greater opportunity for all students to be able to remain in school and on campus. We continue to urge all eligible community members to get vaccinated and, when recommended, to receive a booster. However, please know there is no locally-mandated COVID vaccine or booster requirement for students, nor has this been a topic of discussion with our Board of Trustees.
Modified Quarantine and Outdoor Mask Wearing
We all want as normal a school year as possible and are taking many steps to do that in a safe and healthy way, with the goal of ensuring that as many students as possible are attending school in person in their classrooms. Our Modified Quarantine allows students exposed to someone who is COVID positive to remain in school instead of missing school for ten days as they would under the traditional quarantine program.
Our Modified Quarantine program continues to keep unvaccinated students who are deemed to be close contacts in school and, to date, 263 students have been able to benefit from in-person instruction because of the Modified Quarantine - that means that, collectively, these students have been in school for over 2600 more days of school than they would have been under traditional quarantine rules.
An important component of the Modified Quarantine has been the requirement for outdoor masks at the elementary and middle school levels. This requirement was always intended to be a temporary one. With high vaccination rates for students ages 12-17, strong first dose vaccination rates for students 5-11, and the wide availability of vaccine appointments for all students to receive a first and/or second dose of a vaccine between now and their return from winter break, it is time to revisit this policy. Beginning on January 3 we will shift from an outdoor masking rule of ‘required’ to ‘strongly encouraged’ at the elementary and middle school levels. This will align our outdoor masking rule across all grade levels from preschool through twelfth grade to ‘strongly encouraged.’
This means that our outdoor masking requirement at the elementary and middle school will be in place for 5 more school days , and then will be strongly encouraged, but not required, upon our return from winter break on January 3.
Please note that indoor masking remains a requirement for all schools in California.
Along with good masking practices and vaccination, another step to help provide an additional layer of protection against COVID for students and staff is our on-campus COVID testing program; you can find more information about this program here.
Please watch for more information in forthcoming editions of this Newsletter and school site messages from your principal prior to the winter break.
