Nearly 90% of Washington’s public school employees vaccinated against COVID

Nearly 90% of Washington’s public K-12 school employees have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19.

“What we are seeing is stunning because in every single county in the state of Washington, our educators exceeded the overall vaccine population, the vaccinated population in that county, sometimes by twice as much,” Superintendent of Public Instruction Chris Reykdal said in a media briefing Oct. 28.

He clarified that 90.4% of classroom employees, 87.6% of school building employees, and 86.9% of district employees are fully vaccinated.

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) reports that just 0.5% of school employees have initiated the vaccine process but are not considered fully vaccinated. Another 0.7% have obtained a medical exemption, and 9.6% have obtained a religious exemption.

OSPI further reports that 0.3% of school employees did not obtain a vaccine or exemption. The figure accounts for retirees and separations unrelated to the vaccine requirement.

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“Our school employees are fully vaccinated at rates of 14–18 percentage points higher than the statewide average of vaccinated adults in Washington,” Reykdal said. “This means our students are more likely to come into contact with an unvaccinated adult at the grocery store, a restaurant, or another community area than at their school.”

“Schools are, quite frankly, the safest place for kids to be,” he added.

Reykdal confirmed that the state is not considering vaccine mandates for students at this time. He did suggest that it will be considered as soon as the next school year if and once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration goes beyond emergency approval and fully authorizes COVID vaccines for children.

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“To the question of mandates for students, I do not think that would be appropriate,” Reykdal added. “I suspect next school year, we could be talking about this, and I would certainly support that for next school year.”

Reykdal confirmed that Washington’s public schools have experienced a 3.5% decline in student enrollment, something which he attributes to an increase in homeschooling. He clarified how that will affect the state’s education budget, specifically within the context of what he described as a “labor shortage” within schools.

“This is not a time to reduce more staff,” Reykdal said. “And that’s the effect if … the legislature [says], ‘hey, we assumed you would have these resources, but we’re going to start pulling them back because your enrollments aren’t where we thought they’d be.’”

“We are going to ask the governor and the legislature to keep us whole,” he said. “And while we still have three and a half percent [decline] of our student [population], you don’t get to reduce your budget that way.”

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