Highland Park Parents Want Schools To Mandate Vaccine For Kids

HIGHLAND PARK, NJ — While debate and anger over New Jersey's K-12 mask mandate rages in some parts of New Jersey, some parents in Highland Park have an entirely new proposal: The school district should mandate all students 12 and older get the coronavirus vaccine.

However, a vaccine requirement like that would have to come from the state of New Jersey; local school boards don't have that authority, said Board president Mark Krieger, although he said he personally supports the idea.

"We would love to mandate it," Krieger said at the Monday night Highland Park Board of Education meeting. "However, I've personally read the New Jersey statutes for schools and they delineate what vaccines we can demand, and the COVID-19 vaccine is not on that list."

"So as much as this board would like very much to demand vaccines, from 12-18 and every teacher, until we have an order from the governor or the Legislature, we cannot do it," said the board president.

Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, a Highland Park mother of a third grader, was the first to suggest the school district mandate the vaccine for all kids 12 and up.

"It's imperative that the Highland Park school district really lead the state and implement the policy to require all students 12 and over receive the COVID-19 vaccine," she said at the Board meeting. "This is really the best way to protect our community from COVID and prevent harmful quarantines."

Requiring all eligible kids get the shot will allow school to operate as safely and normally as possible this year, and avoid students be subject to "harmful" 10-day quarantines when a fellow student in their class test positive, she said.

"I cannot fully fully articulate how damaging the quarantines are," she said. "Both to caregivers, our ability to make a living, and to our kids."

At that meeting, many parents spoke in agreement with her.

"We need to get the state to take action," said fellow mom Andrea Alexander. "I would assume teachers want their students to be vaccinated. It's the public health issue of our time."

Another parent in support, Rob Scott, said he estimates that about 57 percent of all Highland Park students ages 12-18 are currently vaccinated for COVID, although that is not an official number. He came up with that number based on analysis he's done using state Dept. of Health and U.S. Census data.

He said that number is too low. If all teens could be vaccinated:

"The virus just won't enter the high school. Our community will be a vaccinated fortress."

Board president Krieger said the district would look into daily testing of unvaccinated students who were close contacts of a positive case, as they are doing in Massachusetts, instead of requiring the 10-day quarantines it did last year.

Be the first to know. Sign up to get Patch emails: https://patch.com/subscribe Contact this Patch reporter: Carly.baldwin@patch.com