Late Tuesday night, on Aug.31, the Chabot-Las Positas Board Of Trustees passed the motion to make the Covid-19 vaccine mandatory for students and staff for the spring semester. This motion was presented during the summer but was ultimately decided against for the current fall semester.
This decision came full circle as the board passed this plan to hopefully create a safer environment for on-campus classes. The decision to make the vaccine mandatory for returning students and staff could’ve been influenced by California Community Colleges (CCC). CCC released a document about mandatory vaccines being lawful, this is laid out in Sec B. Para 1.
As this story develops Las Positas isn’t the only college implementing this mandate, earlier this week Duke University passed a mandate as well for their staff and students. This mandate had caused a stir in the college system but recently made light.
Colleges are looking to create a safe and healthy environment for in-person classes for the remaining time. Las Positas has slowly introduced hybrid classes into the fall term as announced last spring. Las Positas hopes to ease students back into a normal work environment while staying safe.
LPC coming into the spring semester hopes to vitalize the vaccine mandate to ensure fuller heads overall. Las Positas specifically wants to ensure a 60 to 65 percent increase in in-person instruction.
“ A fuller return to campus. In the first draft of the schedule, Academic Services has asked that roughly 60%-65% of instruction be scheduled in-person.
For added flexibility, any hybrid course taught with more than 51% of the section’s instructional hours scheduled in-person may be considered part of the 60%-65%. With a vaccination mandate in place and following state and local guidelines, classes will be scheduled at full capacity. Full-time faculty, according to the contract, will meet 40% of their instructional load with face-to-face instruction. We will follow Alameda County guidelines in place at that time concerning masking.” – Disclosed from Kristina Whalen VP of academic services
Las Positas and Chabot are among the many colleges to use this mandate. This gives students another reason to trust in-person instruction. There hasn’t been any negative backlash following the passing of the mandate.
“As we have done for the past several months, we will continue to work together to implement these policies, which includes establishing a timeline and implementation of procedures,” said Chancellor Gerhard.
This timeline could change based on public opinion or the ability to implement this policy in five months. However, as of now, these are rules that will be implemented for the spring 2022 semester at Las Positas.
C.j Flores is the Editor-in-Chief for The Express. Follow him @Cj_mcanfores.
