California will not require COVID vaccinations for students to attend school

School-aged children in California won’t have to get the coronavirus vaccine to attend school.

The state public health officials confirmed Friday, that they were ending one of the last major restrictions of the pandemic.

“The state did not mandate COVID-19 vaccines for children," says a PSUSD representative. "Since we follow state public health guidelines, there was not a vaccine mandate for district students."

"We didn’t notify parents because COVID vaccines were never an official mandate from the state," says a CVUSD representative. "There were mentions that the state wanted to require them, but they never became official. Therefore, we only inform our families of official information to prevent confusion and reduce retraction."

Desert Sands Unified has nothing to share at the moment.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Children in California won’t have to get the coronavirus vaccine to attend schools, state public health officials confirmed Friday, ending one of the last major restrictions of the pandemic in the nation’s most populous state.

Gov. Gavin Newsom first announced the policy in 2021, saying it would eventually apply to all of California’s 6.7 million public and private schoolchildren.

But since then, the crisis first caused by a mysterious virus in late 2019 has mostly receded from public consciousness. COVID-19 is still widespread, but the availability of multiple vaccines has lessened the viruses’ effects for many — offering relief to what had been an overwhelmed public health system.

Nearly all of the pandemic restrictions put in place by Newsom have been lifted, and he won’t be able to issue any new ones after Feb. 28 when the state’s coronavirus emergency declaration officially ends.

One of the last remaining questions was what would happen to the state’s vaccine mandate for schoolchildren. This policy came from the California Department of Public Health and was not impacted by the lifting of the emergency declaration.

Friday, the Department of Public Health confirmed it was backing off its original plan.

“CDPH is not currently exploring emergency rulemaking to add COVID-19 to the list of required school vaccinations, but we continue to strongly recommend COVID-19 immunization for students and staff to keep everyone safer in the classroom,” the department said in a statement. “Any changes to required K-12 immunizations are properly addressed through the legislative process.”

News channel 3 went to a local park and found parents with opposing views on the decision not to mandate covid vaccines for children to attend schools. A local parent who has three children in PSUSD had no plans of vaccinating her children. Another parent whose child attends a Culver City Unified School district school is completely vaccinated and boosted.

Tune in at 5 pm and 6 pm to see how parents are reacting to the Department of Public Health's decision.