Russo: How to cover the next wave of school vaccination policies (without making unvaccinated kids seem unsafe).

Focus on mixed-vaccination scenarios. Talk to students. Avoid treating high vaccination rates and mandates as necessities.

By Alexander Russo

There was a LOT of enthusiasm out there among parents and parent journalists earlier this month about the newly available vaccine for kids ages 5-11. I mean, people were really excited, and for good reason. With the new approval, pretty much everyone in a K-12 school could now be vaccinated.

At just about the same time, however, there was a big surge of concern about media coverage of education issues leading up to the November elections. Had there been too much coverage of school board protests or too little? Had the coverage amplified manufactured issues or missed real concerns?

Given this context, education reporters writing about schools and vaccines again this winter are going to have to do an especially careful job.

The good news is this isn’t anyone’s first rodeo when it comes to covering vaccinations and schools; reporters previously covered vaccinations for school staff and for older students. Many of the issues that are coming up are familiar: our highly decentralized system of governance, a highly politicized environment, and deeply divided views on vaccines, safety, and personal choice.

At the same time, the new vaccine rules will involve a much larger and younger population of students, and schools are developing policies around them in an even more polarized environment than last spring and earlier this fall. Efforts to incentivize vaccination, much less mandate it, could unintentionally create inequalities and are already generating opposition. So that makes things tougher.

Here are some ideas for producing helpful, nuanced coverage, and some questions that might help reveal important information on the topic:

The new vaccine rules will involve a much larger and younger population of students, and schools are developing policies around them in an even more polarized environment.

IDEA #1: FOCUS ON MIXED-VACCINATION SITUATIONS 

Vaccine availability is a great thing for the parents and kids who want it. However, only about half of parents say they’re going to vaccinate their eligible kids.

States and schools are understandably hesitant about mandating vaccination for younger kids, especially while the vaccines are authorized but haven’t yet received final approval. Many schools are going to be filled with a mix of kids for at least the rest of the school year.

Many schools are encouraging vaccination and offering information, but not much more than that. Some are offering shots onsite, or helping parents make appointments for their kids. Student vaccination is an add-on to school safety protocols, not a silver bullet.

Questions to ask: How have schools dealt with this “mixed” situation with middle and high school kids? How are they handling (or planning on handling) it differently with elementary school kids? How is it working so far, compared to middle and high schools?

IDEA #2: GET INTO SCHOOLS & ASK KIDS QUESTIONS

There are so many people who are easier to find and more excited to talk to you than kids: teachers, administrators, school nurses. So it’s easy to end up focusing on what they are experiencing and feeling. But as always, your stories will be so much more distinctive and useful if you find students to talk to, get into schools, and focus a good amount of your reporting on kids.

News outlets that query kids often turn up surprising results, like when FiveThirtyEight polled kids about their well-being and found that students weren’t as distressed as you may have been told. Reporters who get into classrooms, like the L.A. Times’ Melissa Gomez did recently in a story about ethnic studies courses, often produce coverage that stands out from the pack.

Questions to ask: What do kids think about school vaccination policies that are being proposed or implemented by their districts? Do they make sense and seem fair? Do students have any good ideas for getting more kids vaccinated or making schools safer? 

IDEA #3: EXPLORE INEQUALITIES & TRADEOFFS

Life is all about tradeoffs, and your reporting should make that clear. The lack of vaccine mandates will likely mean lower vaccine rates for kids, potentially bringing more infection to those same vulnerable communities.

However, school policies that favor vaccinated students could have the effect of keeping vulnerable kids at home — the kids who most need in-person school. One of the stories we featured last week in the newsletter explores this concern, How lagging vaccination rates could keep the Bay Area’s Black students out of school. The New York Times has also looked into this: Oakland approves plan to transfer or unenroll unvaccinated students. You should, too.

Another issue to explore is vaccine-related inequalities between different districts. As The Oregonian reported recently, a private school pulled out all the stops and managed to vaccinate nearly 70% of its students. But only about 6% of Portland public school kids are vaccinated at this point.

Questions to ask: What are the tradeoffs between vaccine mandates and community infection rates? Are schools treating kids differently based on their vaccination status? 

Speculating about the future is fun, and mandates are nearly always controversial. But mandates are not what most schools are experiencing.

IDEA #4: AVOID OVER-FOCUSING ON MANDATES

Speculating about the future is fun, and mandates are nearly always controversial. So it’s easy to end up focusing on them. But mandates are not what most schools are experiencing, so do your best to focus your information-gathering on the real world that students and educators inhabit

A handful of school districts are mandating student vaccinations. A few more, like Portland, have actively considered the option. According to Vox, mandates are all but inevitable. Ditto according to NPR. But most schools aren’t going for coronavirus vaccine mandates — yet, according to the Washington Post. As quoted in The 74, experts like former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb think it’s going to be a while.

And, as noted in the Wall Street Journal, other countries are not universally focused on student vaccinations as we are. District Administration reports that a handful of states have barred schools from requiring the COVID vaccine. The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that a handful of California districts are aiming to defy the state’s vaccine mandate.

But most schools and districts aren’t going the mandate route, and vaccination and mandates aren’t a prerequisite to operating schools safely in person. So it would be a disservice to your readers to focus on what might happen rather than reporting out what actually is.

Questions to ask: Short of a mandate, how are they encouraging vaccination and keeping kids and teachers safe – and how is it going so far?

IDEA #5: ASK HARD QUESTIONS ABOUT PLANS & IMPLEMENTATION

Take a hard look at whatever your districts and schools are doing when it comes to younger students and vaccination, whether it’s primarily information and outreach, a full-on vaccine mandate, or something in between.

Based on previous experience, we know that vaccine mandates are only as good as the policies and procedures used to implement them. Some outlets are already looking into this. The Wall Street Journal, Voice of San Diego, and several other outlets have explored the effects of personal belief exemptions, as well as medical opt-outs that could dilute the real-world impact of mandates.

But there are hard questions to be asked about other kinds of school vaccine policies as well, including Massachusetts’ mask waiver for high-vaccination schools, which allows districts with high vaccination rates to loosen mask-wearing policies for vaccinated students.

Questions to ask: For mandates: How is vaccination being tracked and verified? What kinds of exemptions are available, and what percentage of them are being approved? How are non-vaccinated kids treated? For other policies: Does the policy treat kids differently based on their vaccination status?

Take a hard look at whatever your districts and schools are doing, whether it’s primarily information and outreach, a full-on vaccine mandate, or something in between. 

A few closing words of caution:

As I understand them, the scientific facts favor vaccination. The number of parents and reporters who support vaccination is large. To them, vaccinating kids is a no-brainer, and schools encouraging or even requiring vaccinations is an obvious next step.

However, I would urge journalists reporting on school vaccine policies this winter to beware the blind spot that their convictions might create for them, and to fight to understand where some parents are coming from.

Remember that the vaccine approvals are not finalized, and that some parents are understandably wary of school policies that seemed unfair, unnecessary, or punitive. Remember that they may not have had as good an experience with their school as you or others in your community. Most of all, remember that most elementary schools have been able to reopen safely this fall without any vaccinated students.

If reporters can put their own beliefs aside, talk to kids, explore the reality of schools with a mixed population of vaccinated kids, ask hard questions, and avoid over-focusing on mandates, their coverage will be successful.

Previous columns on school vaccine coverage issues:

Back to school for reporters, too

Covering school vaccine mandates

How school board protest coverage over-emphasizes violence and ideology