What Immigrant Students and Educators in Oakland Are Doing to Boost Vaccination Rates at Schools

Oakland students age 12 and older have less than two months left to get their COVID-19 shots before the school district’s vaccine mandate kicks in on Jan. 1. As of late October, about 60% of district students had gotten at least one dose, according to district officials.

But some schools are facing more obstacles than others in making sure their students get vaccinated. At Oakland International High School, which serves immigrant students who’ve recently arrived from around the world, administrators estimated only 47% of students had gotten at least their first dose as of early November.

They point to misinformation about the vaccine and language barriers as hurdles they need to work through to boost their numbers.

“We feel like we’ve been put in a situation where, for better or worse, we have to round up students and really very strongly recommend that they get the vaccine,” says OIHS principal Veronica Garcia. “The stakes are very high.”

Students who aren’t vaccinated and don’t get an exemption must either transfer to the district’s independent study program — distance learning — or be disenrolled.

Garcia worries the district’s distance learning program isn’t equipped to serve newcomers. English-language learners suffered some of the worst academic consequences of Zoom-based school.

“It’s a terrible choice, right?” she says.

She says there aren’t enough resources to provide culturally relevant and accurate information on the vaccines to students and families, who tend to live in Oakland ZIP codes with lower vaccination rates. 

“There’s just not a lot of consistent support with Mam language translation,” she says, referring to a Mayan tongue used by some half million people, primarily in Guatemala. “There just aren’t a lot of culturally competent people out there in the field that can provide information to our Arabic-speaking families, for example, who have their own specific concerns about the vaccine or our families that speak Tigrinya.”

So one November morning, it’s case manager Ricardo Jaramillo’s job to round up unvaccinated students. He walks the school hallways checking, and rechecking, his list of names.

He dips into a classroom and comes out with 18-year-old Edras Sanchez from Honduras. Like all the students at this high school, Sanchez is new to the country, and Jaramillo wants to ensure he understands the district’s vaccine mandate so he can stay in school. Come January first, Jaramillo explains, Sanchez will need an exemption to come to school if he’s still not vaccinated.

Sanchez has been avoiding the shot. “I’m scared,” he says. “I hear the vaccine is getting people sick.” He’s worried about the side effects and has a lot of questions about how vaccines work.

Community school manager Madenh Hassan, who’s responsible for helping with things like students’ mental health, medical and legal needs, says there are other reasons getting a vaccine is complicated for her students. Those who are undocumented worry about being asked to show their documentation, plus they’re still learning their way around this country.

“It’s really challenging being a newcomer and really understanding how to have a conversation about my needs,” she says. “Even just saying it’s available everywhere, that means almost nothing to students. Like, ‘I need you to walk me here and show me and me to feel comfortable knowing you’re somebody I trust.'”

In October the school held a vaccine clinic on campus and only 30 students got shots, principal Garcia says. Since then, staff have upped their outreach efforts. They’ve been giving presentations in classes, providing information in students’ native languages, and calling home.

Case managers like Jaramillo are also having lots of one-on-one conversations with students like Sanchez. Outside his classroom, he asks Jaramillo, “Are there any risks associated with the vaccine?”

Jaramillo explains they’re minimal and points out that he’s gotten two doses himself. To his surprise, Sanchez agrees to head over to the pop-up vaccine clinic the school is holding that day. Most students turn down the offer.

Eighteen-year-old Ronaldo Aguilar and fellow student Anibal Godinez, 17, say they’re doing their part to encourage hesitant classmates to get the shot.  And it’s not just about health; they don’t want to see their peers end up in distance learning. “In-person [school] is better,” Aguilar says. “That’s why we need to get the vaccine.”

OIHS administrators hoped to get 100 students vaccinated at a clinic held on November 10. In the end, 72 people got shots, and some of those were staff members getting boosters.

At Rudsdale Newcomer High School, the other district campus dedicated solely to serving new immigrant students, assistant principal Emma Batten-Bowman says she’s had more success.

She estimates around 75% of her students are vaccinated. That’s in part because they tend to be older, and many of them hold jobs that require them to be vaccinated. But she also credits the robust support system she’s been able to put in place at the school through her own grant writing and other efforts.

“It just feels like we’re creating a lot of stuff on our own instead of getting that from the district,” she says. “They should be sending folks that speak Spanish and Mam to talk about the vaccine and to meet with families.”

Instead, she’s relied in part on her AmeriCorps volunteers to accompany students to vaccination appointments. “Most schools just don’t have the capacity for that kind of outreach,” Batten-Bowman says, “and that’s the kind of outreach it really takes.”

Oakland Unified partnered with the county to bring vaccination clinics to some campuses, held district-wide info sessions online and made an informational video available there in several languages, including Mam, but Batten-Bowman says those aren’t accessible for many families. The district has designated this week “Vaccination Education Week” and is encouraging teachers to dedicate lessons to vaccine education.

Students who don’t get vaccinated will be able to keep going to school if they can get a doctor’s note granting them a medical or personal belief exemption. But Batten-Bowman and Oakland International’s Garcia say that won’t be easy for many of their students, who don’t have regular medical care.

“There’s no guarantee that we can help them access doctors to get a waiver,” Garcia says.

And if they can’t, she worries too many will end up in distance learning classes that don’t meet their needs, or pushed out of school altogether. With the deadline approaching, Garcia is planning another vaccine clinic for next month.