Introduced by Senator Pan (Coauthors: Senators Newman and Wiener) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Aguiar-Curry, Low, Akilah Weber, and Wicks)
This bill would require the State Department of Public Health to coordinate specified school district, county office of education, and charter school COVID-19 testing programs that are currently federally funded or organized under the California COVID-19 Testing Task Force. The bill would require the department to provide supportive services, including technical assistance, vendor support, guidance, monitoring, and testing education, related to testing programs for teachers, staff, and pupils to help schools reopen and keep schools operating safely for in-person learning. The bill would also require the department to expand its contagious, infectious, or communicable disease testing and other public health mitigation efforts to include prekindergarten, onsite after school programs, and childcare centers.
Each local district would be required to name a person to be lead their team and to be responsible for reporting. Such costs are estimated to be minimum of $150,000 per district and the overall costs to the state are estimated to be in the millions of dollars.
POSTED: May 19, 2022
STATUS: Senate - third reading
POSITION: Oppose
Thoughts for consideration:
· Schools and childcare centers have become healthcare centers instead of pursuing their core mission of providing quality education. This bill would add one more requirement to distract them from their mission.
· Those who seek to exercise control over the population do so by continuing to focus on COVID-19, inciting fear, and spending millions of dollars to set up unnecessary programs.