Time continues to pass with COVID still being a prominent part of people’s lives. However, a recent development that was brought forward is the COVID vaccine. With vaccines come different requirements, and one question rises: should schools make the COVID vaccine mandatory when it becomes available for everyone?

The short answer: yes. 

By making the vaccines mandatory in school, it decreases the risk of students and teachers going through the back-and-forth of online and in-person. That was one of the main struggles of the 2020 school year, especially since Arizona was marked as one of the highest rated states with COVID, being number one for a large portion of time. This uncertainty on how to handle COVID and the consistent spread between citizens and students alike, led to google classroom being the ultimate tool and weeks of staying online for different periods. 

With the COVID vaccine implemented under mandatory vaccines, the school environment will be less tense. With the vaccine, there will most likely be a decreased chance that COVID will be spread, so students will no longer have to worry about having to quarantine for two weeks because their classmate got it.

This also ensures that students will get the full high school experience. COVID has caused a severe amount of damage both physically and mentally, within the school itself, it has also caused a disruption in each grade levels experiences. Freshmen had a late start to their high school experience, which made making friends and finding their place within their classrooms so much harder. Juniors face the struggle of their SAT and ACT’s consistently being cancelled. Seniors had various experiences taken away, ranging from their last homecoming to their senior panoramic picture. 

The COVID vaccine can ensure that all of these events will occur and that, eventually, the normalcy that once was, like attending class without a mask and being able to walk in either direction within the hallway, will return. 

There is the idea that making the COVID vaccine mandatory within schools is an unnecessary move and can lead to more harm than good. However, there are already required immunizations that fight against different sicknesses that are required to be able to continue to attend public schools in Arizona: Hepatitis B, Polio, Measles, Varicella, Tetanus, and more. All this would be is another addition to that list. All of these shots take place throughout a span of ten years in doses, the COVID vaccine can be one of the last doses that can be given in teen years. 

There is an understandable amount of anxiety that comes with the COVID vaccine, but when it becomes more established within society and continues down the waves, schools should make it mandatory so that the risk of COVID within the halls decreases. 

Normalcy can be reached again with this new mandatory implementation.