Dear Viking Family,

I’m writing to you today to update you on some important decisions Long Beach City College has made regarding this fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and how we are doing our best to keep our families, colleagues, friends, and students safe.

In Los Angeles County, the number of COVID-19 related cases has nearly doubled in the last two weeks. According to the Los Angeles County Health Department, almost everyone who is hospitalized was unvaccinated.

In response to the surge of COVID-19 cases, we’re implementing the following two actions:

• Long Beach City College will require proof of vaccination from our employees. If employees are unable to provide this information, they will be regularly tested for COVID-19. Those LBCC students who have registered for in-person classes will also need to provide proof of vaccination or be tested regularly.
• With the latest information on the increase of COVID-19 cases, there is also an update that will adjust our timeline for most managers and classified professionals returning to campus.

Another email with details on both topics will follow shortly.

This decision regarding the proof of vaccination or regular testing follows a similar order from Governor Newsom for state workers and Long Beach Mayor Garcia for City employees. The California State University system also recently decided to mandate vaccinations for both their students and employees.

Additionally, I met with all of our LBCC constituency leaders and we agree that this is the best next course of action as we see the number of COVID-19 cases spike and hospitalizations increase drastically in the past few weeks alone.

I’m sure you will have questions about how this process of verification will go. Since we are still in the early stages of planning, I don’t have details just yet. But in the spirit of transparency, I wanted to inform our campus community as soon as possible. For those of you who are still unvaccinated, I hope this gives you time to get your free and safe COVID-19 vaccination shot.

From day one of this pandemic, our situation has been very fluid. We have seen changes happen very quickly and we’ve pivoted one way to another. I know that it has been a very long year and a half for all of us. We have seen so many changes. Some of us have lost family and friends to the pandemic. It has been challenging for all of us mentally and physically. I know that I was feeling extremely hopeful when we announced that we were making a partial return for Fall Semester and about our plans to return to pre-COVID levels for Spring 2022. But if we don’t use all of the tools available to us, our plans to return to pre-COVID days will be delayed.

I know that you are the most passionate, energetic, and incredible faculty, classified staff, and managers I have ever worked with. I see how hard you work to serve our students on a daily basis. And most importantly, I know how much you care for our students. With the majority of our student population between the ages of 18-35, this is the population that is being hit the hardest by the COVID-19 Delta variant. So, I’m encouraging you to please get your vaccination as soon as possible. Not only to help protect your immediate family and friends but to also help those young students we serve in the classrooms.

Please be safe and let’s continue to care for each other.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mike Muñoz
Interim Superintendent-President
Long Beach Community College District