Placentia-Yorba Linda school board seeks to oppose COVID-19 vaccine mandate amid outbreak

A fold-out sign outside Travis Ranch School in Yorba Linda warns that face coverings are required before entering. The quaint, hillside campus also advises people to maintain physical distance.

Following a recent COVID-19 outbreak, the sign could have just as easily read: “No sixth-graders allowed beyond this point.”

A cluster of coronavirus cases sent the entire sixth-grade class home this week for remote learning instruction right before winter break. Travis Ranch School Principal Taylor Holloway alerted parents of the move to quarantine on Sunday over email.

“Please know we do not take this decision lightly and apologize for any inconvenience it will certainly cause,” Holloway wrote. “It is important that we keep our students, staff and families safe while limiting academic disruptions such as this.”

Earlier this month, administrators became alarmed about a rising number of positive cases among students and staff. Holloway first sent an email to parents about COVID-19 cases on Dec. 9. At the time, she reported that 26 students and two staff members had tested positive since returning from Thanksgiving break; Travis Ranch is a K-8 school site with 1,395 students and staff.

“A large majority of the cases reported to us originated outside of campus,” Holloway wrote.

The Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District and Travis Ranch school nursing staff investigate cases in tandem with Orange County Health Care Agency officials.

Holloway stressed to parents in the email that the school continued its adherence to the district’s “Return to School” plan for the academic year, which included universal masking, HEPA purifiers in every classroom and additional handwashing and sanitizing stations on campus.

But a case count that continued to rise ultimately trumped such safety measures for sixth-graders, who comprised a majority of those who tested positive, in favor of an off-site quarantine.

With additional cases confirmed over the weekend, the district reported 37 students and two staff members had tested positive for coronavirus on its dashboard, which was updated Monday morning.

“District and school administrators will continue to monitor this situation very closely in partnership with local healthcare officials,” read a district statement released on Monday. “The district empathizes with those impacted and shares in the many challenges that have emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. As is the case with any troubling situation, the district’s team of health professionals is ready to serve and support students, staff and families affected by this situation.”

A district spokeswoman declined to offer any further comment, including any possible identification of the source of the outbreak, beyond the official statement.

The O.C. Health Care Agency deferred comment on the outbreak to the district.

Holloway’s alert to parents on Sunday informed them that hundreds of students had been identified as close contacts.

Teachers began instruction over Zoom on Tuesday.

The outbreak also caused administrators to cancel or postpone a slew of scheduled gatherings and events for students at all grade levels this week. That applied to color guard practice, after-school club meetings and a wintertime choir show out of fear of students spreading more than holiday cheer.

Reviewed by TimesOC, individual “close contact” notices sent to parents before quarantine placed the date of exposure as early as Dec. 2. Other parents continued to receive notices this week that their children were identified as “close contacts,” an alert often accompanied by the determination that mask compliance was consistent in the case.

By Wednesday morning, the number of confirmed cases jumped to 54, which accounted for more than a third of current coronavirus infections in the district.

Administrators encouraged parents to monitor their children for potential COVID-19 symptoms and made free testing kits available at Travis Ranch School’s front office.

Travis Ranch School sent sixth-graders home for instruction following a rash of COVID-19 cases.

(Gabriel San Roman)

Before the outbreak sent hundreds of children home for remote instruction, the PYLUSD board of trustees was already set to discuss a resolution opposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates at schools.

In October, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a forthcoming COVID-19 vaccine mandate for the state’s schools once the U.S. Food and Drug Administration grants full approval to the shots for children in staggered age brackets.

For students ages 12 and up, that could come as soon as early next year.

Sarah Clark, a parent with children at the district, spoke against any such mandate at the Dec. 14 school board meeting.

“The parents are the ones with stewardship over their children,” Clark said. “The majority of the parents in this district, they don’t want their kids to be forced to take an experimental injection and they want their kids to be able to breathe free, fresh air.”

Another speaker rallied for “Maskless Monday” protests.

Even as the FDA found the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to be safe for children between the ages of 5 and 16 before granting it emergency use authorization, a majority of trustees expressed vaccine skepticism and sided with outspoken parents opposed to both vaccine and mask mandates.

Trustee Shawn Youngblood requested that the vaccine mandate discussion be placed on the agenda.

“One of the things that is concerning is the liability issue,” he said during the meeting. “When we start forcing these vaccines on kids then, we, as the district, are going to be held responsible, as well, for any damage [that] happens to these kids now and possibly in the future.”

Along with a majority of his colleagues, Youngblood previously voted in July to formally ask the California Department of Health to change its guidelines to allow schools to make masks optional.

This time around, he wanted to spearhead a resolution formally representing the board’s opposition to COVID-19 vaccine mandates in favor of parental choice by January.

Trustee Marilyn Anderson backed her colleague and called for a survey of parents in the district on the topic. She claimed that enrollment at the district has dropped by 1,600 students since the start of the pandemic and favored a multilayered approach that included sending a letter to Newsom.

“We have time to advocate,” Anderson said to applause. “We have time to influence people and speak out for parents, for parental choice.”

At no time during the vaccine mandate discussion did the Travis Ranch outbreak come up in the conversation.

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