By Mary O’KEEFE

Glendale Unified School District Board of Education adopted a resolution at its Tuesday meeting requiring all employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by Nov. 1.

“From the moment vaccinations were first available, Glendale Unified has worked diligently with our healthcare partners to provide vaccination opportunities for employees, students and families,” said GUSD Superintendent Dr. Vivian Ekchian. “I am incredibly proud of our District’s continued commitment and efforts to vaccinate our community, which have resulted in an already high vaccination rate among our employees.”

The mandate does take into consideration religious and health reasons for not getting vaccinated.

At a press conference held prior to the board meeting on Tuesday, Ekchian spoke of how the District has been dealing with the pandemic, and how it is still learning and collecting data.

There are 24,500 students attending GUSD, and there have been 4,300 student and staff members in quarantine as of Tuesday.

“We have a zero transmission rate at the school site, even though we had COVID cases and we have had to quarantine,” she said. “[Cases have] come from the community.”

When a student or students attending elementary schools are found to test positive for COVID-19 the entire class is put in quarantine.

She said that the District is being “super careful,” and not only are elementary children who test positive and the children surrounding them asked to stay at home but also the entire classroom of students.

When a middle school or high school student/students test positive or are exposed to COVID-19 that student or students are required to quarantine; however, any student who is vaccinated can return to school.

“Quarantine doesn’t mean you are sick, it means you are taking care of yourself and your community,” Ekchian said.

The District does offer COVID testing for students and teachers who want to be tested in addition to those who are returning to school from quarantine or for groups of athletes. When asked why GUSD does not mandate weekly testing like Los Angeles Unified does Ekchian replied the District is gathering data before making a decision.

Ekchian continues to focus on the advantages of vaccination and touts the success the District has achieved in this area.

As of Wednesday, 85.5% of certified employees have been vaccinated, with 1.8% having had one vaccine shot, 76% of classified employees are fully vaccinated with 3.5% partially vaccinated and 89.5% of management, which includes administrators, are fully vaccinated with .75% partially vaccinated. This information was gathered from surveys of the staff although about 500 individuals who have not responded to the surveys.

After the District’s press conference and prior to the school board meeting on Tuesday, about 100 teachers, parents and students showed up in front of the District office to raise attention of their concerns.

Glendale Teacher Association President Chris Davis said the District has done a lot of things right, like improving the ventilation system in classrooms, but that he, teachers and parents are still very concerned about other issues, including outdoor masking.

“It has been a long road to get strong safety and health language for our students and for employees,” he said of the negotiations with the District that began at the start of the pandemic. “Our District is entering really difficulty territory, like every school district, during what is going to be a long slog through COVID.”

Davis added that decisions that will be made are not temporary ones. One of the safety concerns is that Los Angeles County Public Health has suggested outdoor masking for large gatherings and, although the playgrounds do not see numbers in the thousands, elementary school students have a tendency to be very close to each other, and are not as aware of boundaries.

“At a time when we have kids under 12 who can’t be vaccinated we have a district that is not interested in crowded campuses where students are super packed together,” Davis said. “Kids can be taught to [wear masks]. If it can prevent one case from being transmitted it is worth it.”

He said he understands many do not like wearing masks but it is about safety.

Davis would also like the district to follow LAUSD guidelines of weekly testing.

Next week CVW will continue with GTA issues of concern.

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