Loud Clovis parents are wrong about COVID vaccines. School board must put students first

The Clovis Unified School District has an enrollment of nearly 43,000 students. It is the second-largest district in Fresno County, behind Fresno Unified. Academics, athletics and other extracurriculars in Clovis Unified are strong, giving it well-earned acclaim.

Yet a minority of parents are willing, apparently, to risk the health and well-being of students in Clovis Unified by loudly protesting against common-sense measures dealing with the COVID pandemic.

In August the topic was whether students should wear masks at school as campuses reopened after being closed the prior school year in the pandemic shutdown. After a lengthy process involving parent protests at school board meetings, and the trustees at first saying it would be up to parents to determine if their children would wear masks or not under the guise of “local control,” the board came to its right mind and said masks would have to be worn. That was the state guideline recommended for all California districts.

But now a similar debate is starting over the state requirement that students get COVID vaccines once they are approved for young people. Most likely, that will occur sometime next year.

COVID and kids

Some parents began saber rattling at Wednesday night’s meeting, trying to intimidate the board into disobeying the order that Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced.

“We don’t want you to mandate our kids to be jabbed with the COVID-19 vaccines,” said Dawn Wells, a Clovis Unified parent who spoke during public comment. “It’s important you respect parents and their wishes and what they decide to do for their children.”

Board President Dr. Stephen Fogg echoed with this: ““It’s one thing to put a mask on a kid. It’s another thing to stick a needle in their arm.”

Those comments ignore two key points:

▪ First, no one orders any parent to enroll their child in a public school. Parents must get their children educated in a state-approved way, but that can be done by private school or home schooling.

▪ Second, Fogg’s comments about shots is oblivious to the obvious: California children are already mandated to get vaccines. Why are measles, mumps and rubella not a health threat to the state’s young people today? Because they get vaccinated for those diseases before getting enrolled. This has occurred for years without problem.

Adding COVID to the list is just that: one more required vaccine to keep everyone healthy.

Bee staff writer Melissa Montalvo reported that another parent, Tim Hulse, said if the vaccine mandate is adopted, “there are many of us that will pull our children” from Clovis schools.

To that, there is only one answer: Go ahead. That is your choice. Freedom reigns, and you can find other educational opportunities for your child.

But don’t put the health of the rest of Clovis Unified students in danger over your ill-informed politics.

Wanting vaccines

Americans of earlier generations would likely be flabbergasted at the controversy over vaccines today.

For historical context, consider this from the American Academy of Pediatricians:

“There was a time when diphtheria was one of the most feared childhood diseases, claiming more than 10,000 lives a year in the United States during the 1920s. In the 1940s and 1950s, polio paralyzed and even killed children by the thousands.

“At one point in time, the measles affected nearly a half-million U.S. children every year. Almost everyone in the United States got it at some point during childhood — and it sometimes caused complications such as pneumonia and encephalitis. Fortunately, times have changed.”

What happened was the rise of scientifically, medically sound vaccinations. The academy said that “immunizations are one of the success stories of modern medicine.” Smallpox, polio and diphtheria are virtually nonexistent. Measles, mumps and rubella are dramatically reduced in outbreaks. All due to vaccinations.

Don’t give in

The COVID vaccines are undergoing federal review and will be available to children once testing is complete. That the vaccines are a success in adults is clear. California has the nation’s lowest COVID case rate, lowest death rate and the most vaccinations administered, despite having the largest population of all the states.

It was telling that a Clovis North High School student told the trustees that mask wearing is no big deal among the teens at his campus. The youth will adapt to vaccines, too, if their parents allow it. As often is the case in school controversies, it is the parents who are the problem.

The school board must not let what is certainly a small but vocal group derail a smart public health approach for the vast majority of Clovis Unified’s enrollment. The trustees should stand firm against any call to defy the vaccine mandate, and should not waste time debating any ill-conceived “local control” approach.

That was a travesty this past summer when mask wearing came up, and will be again if the board goes down that path.