COVID Vaccination
On October 29, 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 (through Nov. 25), the first dose vaccination rate for students in Manhattan Beach ages 5-11 is 53.5%, and 96.4% of students ages 12-17 are fully vaccinated.
Beach Cities Health District (BCHD) has held a series of vaccine clinics for school-aged children ages 5-11 in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach since November 8. Here are some important resources:
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If students received their first dose elsewhere, they are able to receive a second dose at a BCHD clinic through December 9 as a walk-in appointment. The schedule is posted at www.bchd.org/schoolvaccines.
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Students are also able to receive a first dose vaccine at a BCHD clinic through December 9, but they will need to schedule their second dose at another location. The last BCHD clinic will be on Thursday, December 9.
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Questions? Contact BCHD’s School Well-Being Line at 310-374-3426, and press option 2. The hours for the 2021-22 academic year will be Monday - Thursday from 8:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. and Friday from 8:00 a.m. to noon on days school is in session.
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Parents can also schedule vaccination appointments by going through the 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 students deemed close contacts in school and, to date, 240 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 2400 more days of school than they would have been under traditional quarantine rules.
An important component of the Modified Quarantine has been the requirement of 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 onn 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 10 more school days, and then will be strongly encouraged, but not required, upon our return from winter break on January 3.
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.
