Parents and teachers across the State of California are sitting out in opposition of vaccine mandates for public schools. The protest is in response to California's statewide COVID-19 vaccination requirement for students and staff at elementary through high schools, ordered by Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier this month.
Newsom's administration has said the vaccine will be required for in-person school attendance.
According to flyers and social media posts promoting the protest, sit-out organizers have encouraged parents to keep their children home from school on Monday — not to call them in sick or otherwise seek excused absences, which would prevent schools from collecting average daily attendance funds from the state.
"It’s not an anti-vax thing. It’s about being told that they have to [take the vaccine] or they have to quit, or your kids can’t go to school in person," Rebekah Koznek, the vice-chair for Moms for Liberty San Luis Obispo County, told The Atascadero News,
"It needs to be a personal choice. Our whole thing is we are supporting the people that are going to face that decision of having to quit or get something they don’t want.”
Despite Konzek's assertions, social media pages on which flyers for the sit-out have been circulated take a distinct anti-vaccine tone. On a Facebook page for a group called "Parents of Freedom - California Parents and Teachers Against Mandates," parents swapped swapped conspiracy theories about government motives in mandating vaccinations and expressed skepticism about the science behind vaccine formulas.
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Several group participants posted letters received from school administrators informing them of consequences for keeping their children home on Oct. 18 without a valid excuse — among them, exclusion from extracurricular sports and receiving failing grades on in-school assignments.
"We understand that families and students may have strong emotions and questions about COVID-19 safety measures, including vaccine and testing requirements," a letter from the Shasta County Office of Education sent to parents on Friday read. "Keeping children home from school to protest the future COVID-19 vaccine requirement would only result in lost learning time for students."
KNX 1070 has reached out to the California Department of Education for commet and will update this story with additional information as it is received.
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