A Los Angeles area charter school barred a group of unvaccinated students from attending class Tuesday and cordoned off the area where the students were with tape barriers, videos of the incident showed.
New West Charter School in Los Angeles confirmed Tuesday that management had implemented a vaccine and negative-test mandate for students and that a group of unvaccinated students had staged “a sit-in” on campus and refused to leave the school.
LOS ANGELES PUBLIC SCHOOLS DELAY STUDENT VACCINE MANDATE AFTER MASS NONCOMPLIANCE
Video of the incident circulated on social media Tuesday, showing tape barriers being put up around the students who were sitting on the pavement outside the school building. Local police can also be seen.
Unvax students at New West Charter LA segregated behind barriers & not allowed to attend class. They asked for chairs, were denied & are sitting on the pavement, not allowed to even use restroom. LAPD is on site but not intervening. Litigation from Let Them Choose already pending pic.twitter.com/hgCI97HYv1
— LET THEM BREATHE (@letthem_breathe) January 18, 2022
New West Charter has unvax kids penned and won’t even let them use the restroom even though the “authorities” are admitting the vax has very little efficacy at this point. Let Them Choose already has litigation against the New West mandate and we beat the SDUSD mandate. pic.twitter.com/xp1LbT66Kq
— LET THEM BREATHE (@letthem_breathe) January 18, 2022
In one video, a student says that the school is threatening them with suspension over their refusal to take the vaccine. Another student said that the school was barring them from using the bathroom. (A spokesperson for the school said no student asked to use the bathroom.)
In a statement to the Washington Examiner, New West Charter School said that it had implemented a vaccine mandate for students following the conclusion of winter break and had achieved 96% compliance, but “six students who did not follow the new policy still attempted to participate in classes.”
The school said that it then asked the students and their parents to “leave campus,” a demand the students refused to follow.
“The students proceeded to stage a sit-in directly behind designated areas for student PCR screenings on campus,” the school said. “New West Charter School administration notified local authorities who came to campus and helped alleviate the disruption.”
The school said parents were informed of the pending requirement in October, and students who were not vaccinated could enroll in their virtual classes.
“Parents who chose not to vaccinate their children knew what options they had available other than returning to campus,” the school said. “While we respect the right of parents to make their own choices for their children, our obligation is to our entire school community. When we have committed to implement a policy to assure parents that our campus is safe for their students, we will stand by that commitment.”
A California parent group, Let Them Breathe, which posted the videos of the students, said in its tweets that a lawsuit has been filed against the school.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Los Angeles Unified School District, the city’s public school system, had similarly announced a vaccine mandate for students, but mass noncompliance forced the district to suspend the mandate until the 2022-2023 school year.
