In the ongoing debate over how soon those who work in schools should return to in-person work, some Los Angeles Unified parents are fuming over the revelation that certain employees who work with special education students have been eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations since January but have yet to provide in-person services to some of the district’s most vulnerable students.
Generally speaking, school employees won’t have access to the vaccines until next week under L.A. County’s priority system, but some — such as speech and language, physical and occupational therapists — were placed in an earlier priority group along with other health workers.
That prioritization, confirmed by an LAUSD administrator this week, have parents asking why some employees who have had access to the vaccines aren’t back on campus yet, and one school board member said he wants the district to negotiate a return to campus for these special education service providers.
“Those who have been vaccinated, they need to report back to work. They’re essential workers, and they provide a critical, essential task to the community,” said parent Renee Bailey, whose 14-year-old son is in special education.
“Those who have been offered to be vaccinated, whether they took the offer or not, they should be back” as well, she added.
Bailey said she was “livid” when she found out that certain employees have been prioritized for vaccines since last month, and said the district should have been more transparent with the public.
“It’s never been announced that those (special education service) providers have been eligible for vaccinations since January,” she said. “It builds mistrust toward the school district themselves because they never even said anything.”
Anthony Aguilar, chief of special education, equity, and access for LAUSD, confirmed that certain employees who provide special education services are already eligible for the vaccine after school board member Nick Melvoin inquired about it during a board meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 23.
“Speech and language therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists have been eligible through the county to be vaccinated,” Aguilar told the board, adding that the district has not tracked who’s been vaccinated through non-LAUSD vaccination sites.
It’s unknown how many of these LAUSD employees have been vaccinated. A spokeswoman for the district said LAUSD is in the process of surveying staff members.
The district opened its first COVID-19 vaccination center last week, but for now, is only administering shots to LAUSD employees ages 65 and older and those who work at its coronavirus testing or vaccination sites.
District officials hope to open more sites, including a massive site planned at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, to vaccinate school employees.
But limited vaccine supply remains an issue, and United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing teachers, counselors, school nurses and other certificated employees, have insisted that school employees be offered vaccines as a condition for returning to campus, even though the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it’s not necessary for teachers to be vaccinated for schools to reopen.
UTLA has also insisted that L.A. County advance out of the purple tier of the state’s COVID-19 monitoring system, which indicates that transmission of the virus remains widespread, and that safety measures be in place at schools before students and staff return. District officials have said they’re ready to reopen schools with the proper safety measures in place.
In the meantime, one school board member said he’s asked the district if it can negotiate a separate agreement with UTLA to have employees who work with students with disabilities return to campus. Melvoin noted that less than 1% of special education students received in-person services last fall before LAUSD shut down all services in December amid a COVID-19 surge.
The district will resume the in-person services next week, but UTLA members cannot be forced to be on campus. Instead, those who belong in the union can volunteer to work on campus to provide in-person services.
“The sticking point with UTLA has been vaccines,” Melvoin said during a phone interview. “But we have this group of UTLA members that have had access for a few weeks. Can’t we have some sort of a carve-out where we agree that (they) should be required (to return)?”
UTLA did not respond to a message seeking comment for this article.
The union previously announced plans for its entire membership to take a vote next week on whether they should refuse to return for in-person work should that become mandatory.
UTLA members, along with parents, students and community members who feel it’s still not safe to return to campus yet held a rally over the weekend, calling for schools to not reopen until the COVID-19 infection rate in every ZIP code served by LAUSD is less than 7 cases per 100,000 residents — the threshold to move a county of the state’s most restrictive, purple tier.
While L.A. County’s average case rate has been dropping quickly — enough that public health officials said elementary schools in the county can reopen — UTLA and LAUSD officials have noted that in some of the neighborhoods hardest hit by the pandemic, the community infection rate is still much higher than the county average.
Editor’s note: The headline, photo caption and article have been updated to reflect that certain special education service providers — such as speech and language, physical and occupational therapists — have had vaccine access since January.
