DC schools September vaccine mandate does not apply to elementary school children

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for this reminder. Will DCPS decouple quarantine from vax status, or will it continue with its racially discriminatory policy?

If a policy is racist because it has differential impacts by racist, with Black people facing worse outcomes, then we'd also have to define school closures as racist.

You guys are crazy. Schools closed because we are in a pandemic. It was not racially based at all. DC closed for too long and should have opened sooner.

As to quarantine, yes you needed to quarantine if you were not vaxed. If you were vaxed and had NO symptoms you did not have to quarantine. If you had symptoms and were vaxed, you still had to quarantine. This is not racist. This was public health guided.

Also vax status was accessible to all. Whoever wanted the vax could easily get it for free. A larger proportion of black families chose not to get it although black leaders in the community did (Mayor, Howard, etc,,). So they chose not to knowing that their kids had to quarantine. That is not racist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for this reminder. Will DCPS decouple quarantine from vax status, or will it continue with its racially discriminatory policy?

If a policy is racist because it has differential impacts by racist, with Black people facing worse outcomes, then we'd also have to define school closures as racist.

You guys are crazy. Schools closed because we are in a pandemic. It was not racially based at all. DC closed for too long and should have opened sooner.

As to quarantine, yes you needed to quarantine if you were not vaxed. If you were vaxed and had NO symptoms you did not have to quarantine. If you had symptoms and were vaxed, you still had to quarantine. This is not racist. This was public health guided.

Also vax status was accessible to all. Whoever wanted the vax could easily get it for free. A larger proportion of black families chose not to get it although black leaders in the community did (Mayor, Howard, etc,,). So they chose not to knowing that their kids had to quarantine. That is not racist.

Public policies that have a racially discriminatory impact have to show a high bar of necessity. The quarantine policy doesn’t meet that bar - it serves no legitimate purpose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for this reminder. Will DCPS decouple quarantine from vax status, or will it continue with its racially discriminatory policy?

If a policy is racist because it has differential impacts by racist, with Black people facing worse outcomes, then we'd also have to define school closures as racist.

You guys are crazy. Schools closed because we are in a pandemic. It was not racially based at all. DC closed for too long and should have opened sooner.

As to quarantine, yes you needed to quarantine if you were not vaxed. If you were vaxed and had NO symptoms you did not have to quarantine. If you had symptoms and were vaxed, you still had to quarantine. This is not racist. This was public health guided.

Also vax status was accessible to all. Whoever wanted the vax could easily get it for free. A larger proportion of black families chose not to get it although black leaders in the community did (Mayor, Howard, etc,,). So they chose not to knowing that their kids had to quarantine. That is not racist.

Public policies that have a racially discriminatory impact have to show a high bar of necessity. The quarantine policy doesn’t meet that bar - it serves no legitimate purpose.

Of course it did. Guess you are not in public health.…. Also it’s not racially discriminatory when the policy could be negated by choice and free access to all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thank you for this reminder. Will DCPS decouple quarantine from vax status, or will it continue with its racially discriminatory policy?

If a policy is racist because it has differential impacts by racist, with Black people facing worse outcomes, then we'd also have to define school closures as racist.

You guys are crazy. Schools closed because we are in a pandemic. It was not racially based at all. DC closed for too long and should have opened sooner.

As to quarantine, yes you needed to quarantine if you were not vaxed. If you were vaxed and had NO symptoms you did not have to quarantine. If you had symptoms and were vaxed, you still had to quarantine. This is not racist. This was public health guided.

Also vax status was accessible to all. Whoever wanted the vax could easily get it for free. A larger proportion of black families chose not to get it although black leaders in the community did (Mayor, Howard, etc,,). So they chose not to knowing that their kids had to quarantine. That is not racist.

Public policies that have a racially discriminatory impact have to show a high bar of necessity. The quarantine policy doesn’t meet that bar - it serves no legitimate purpose.

Of course it did. Guess you are not in public health.…. Also it’s not racially discriminatory when the policy could be negated by choice and free access to all.

Guess you aren’t in civil rights law! The quarantine policy has a severe disparate impact. We hear nothing about it because our elected officials are giant hypocrits. And no, the “free choice” of getting the vaccine doesn’t change the legal analysis. “ Yet, it is important to remember that the causation element is not a fault-based inquiry.”

https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/T6Manual7

I almost want to file the OCR complaint myself.

[Anonymous]

Curious: it seems like at some schools you have families who are irrationally refusing the vaccine up against teachers who are irrationally insisting upon a quarantine policy. In a case like that, could retaining the teachers be a “legitimate purpose”? “Our school is not otherwise able to hire or retain teachers during a widespread teacher shortage” seems to me like it might pass that “high bar of necessity.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious: it seems like at some schools you have families who are irrationally refusing the vaccine up against teachers who are irrationally insisting upon a quarantine policy. In a case like that, could retaining the teachers be a “legitimate purpose”? “Our school is not otherwise able to hire or retain teachers during a widespread teacher shortage” seems to me like it might pass that “high bar of necessity.”

No, racial discrimination cannot be justified as a teacher retention policy. wtf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious: it seems like at some schools you have families who are irrationally refusing the vaccine up against teachers who are irrationally insisting upon a quarantine policy. In a case like that, could retaining the teachers be a “legitimate purpose”? “Our school is not otherwise able to hire or retain teachers during a widespread teacher shortage” seems to me like it might pass that “high bar of necessity.”

No, racial discrimination cannot be justified as a teacher retention policy. wtf.

“Well you see, these teachers only want to teach white kids, so we have to maintain segregation.”

[Anonymous]

I suspect our school will have indoor masks and opt in weekly testing but quarantines will be only for those either not vaccinated or not willing to do test to stay (assuming there is still access to lots of rapid tests).

If kids are given an option of either, I think the concerns about certain groups being more vaccine hesitant than others are pretty well addressed?

Still, we might be one of the last areas in the country not fully returned to life as before and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I suspect our school will have indoor masks and opt in weekly testing but quarantines will be only for those either not vaccinated or not willing to do test to stay (assuming there is still access to lots of rapid tests).

If kids are given an option of either, I think the concerns about certain groups being more vaccine hesitant than others are pretty well addressed?

Still, we might be one of the last areas in the country not fully returned to life as before and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

TTS wasn't done above the ECE age for most schools, I think. I don't even know if it was done for the ECE age at many schools.

But the vaccine, as has been shown, does extremely little for preventing spread, particularly in the school age group. It is therefore difficult to use it to distinguish children on the basis of who can stay in the building and who can't. When the negative repercussions of the policy are large (keeping kids out of school, particularly ones that have already suffered extended periods of time out of school), and the positives are small to negligible, then the policy is bad. The policy is PARTICULARLY bad when it disproportionately hurts Black kids' education.

You can either keep disproportionately Black kids out of school or change the policy.

[Anonymous]

To add: I get the idea originally for getting the vaccine to prevent spread. It just hasn't been shown, over time and with more data, that it really does that (or at least, does that very well).

[Anonymous]

Instituting TTS for all unvaxxed kids is a logistical nightmare. Teachers are already overburdened. The schools already seemed to have trouble hiring covid coordinators.

Add to that, TTS hasn't really been shown to catch a bunch of cases (see results from MA, that ended TTS because it was not cost-beneficial).

Quarantine should end. That's it.

[Anonymous]

The thing that’s most ridiculous about the quarantine policy is that no one is following it or being asked to follow it or even talking about following it anywhere except in public schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect our school will have indoor masks and opt in weekly testing but quarantines will be only for those either not vaccinated or not willing to do test to stay (assuming there is still access to lots of rapid tests).

If kids are given an option of either, I think the concerns about certain groups being more vaccine hesitant than others are pretty well addressed?

Still, we might be one of the last areas in the country not fully returned to life as before and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

TTS wasn't done above the ECE age for most schools, I think. I don't even know if it was done for the ECE age at many schools.

But the vaccine, as has been shown, does extremely little for preventing spread, particularly in the school age group. It is therefore difficult to use it to distinguish children on the basis of who can stay in the building and who can't. When the negative repercussions of the policy are large (keeping kids out of school, particularly ones that have already suffered extended periods of time out of school), and the positives are small to negligible, then the policy is bad. The policy is PARTICULARLY bad when it disproportionately hurts Black kids' education.

You can either keep disproportionately Black kids out of school or change the policy.

I’ll take: “Not supported by science and bullshit accusation of racism for $100, Alex!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect our school will have indoor masks and opt in weekly testing but quarantines will be only for those either not vaccinated or not willing to do test to stay (assuming there is still access to lots of rapid tests).

If kids are given an option of either, I think the concerns about certain groups being more vaccine hesitant than others are pretty well addressed?

Still, we might be one of the last areas in the country not fully returned to life as before and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

TTS wasn't done above the ECE age for most schools, I think. I don't even know if it was done for the ECE age at many schools.

But the vaccine, as has been shown, does extremely little for preventing spread, particularly in the school age group. It is therefore difficult to use it to distinguish children on the basis of who can stay in the building and who can't. When the negative repercussions of the policy are large (keeping kids out of school, particularly ones that have already suffered extended periods of time out of school), and the positives are small to negligible, then the policy is bad. The policy is PARTICULARLY bad when it disproportionately hurts Black kids' education.

You can either keep disproportionately Black kids out of school or change the policy.

I’ll take: “Not supported by science and bullshit accusation of racism for $100, Alex!”

NP. A vaccinated + person is no less likely to spread it than a non vaccinated + person. That is the point. So no quarantine should be required. Have the same “no fever or worsening symptoms” requirement for all students, vaccinated or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I suspect our school will have indoor masks and opt in weekly testing but quarantines will be only for those either not vaccinated or not willing to do test to stay (assuming there is still access to lots of rapid tests).

If kids are given an option of either, I think the concerns about certain groups being more vaccine hesitant than others are pretty well addressed?

Still, we might be one of the last areas in the country not fully returned to life as before and I'm not sure how to feel about that.

TTS wasn't done above the ECE age for most schools, I think. I don't even know if it was done for the ECE age at many schools.

But the vaccine, as has been shown, does extremely little for preventing spread, particularly in the school age group. It is therefore difficult to use it to distinguish children on the basis of who can stay in the building and who can't. When the negative repercussions of the policy are large (keeping kids out of school, particularly ones that have already suffered extended periods of time out of school), and the positives are small to negligible, then the policy is bad. The policy is PARTICULARLY bad when it disproportionately hurts Black kids' education.

You can either keep disproportionately Black kids out of school or change the policy.

I’ll take: “Not supported by science and bullshit accusation of racism for $100, Alex!”

How is it “bullshit” to point out that this policy disproportionately impacts black kids?