The CDC has recommended that all teachers, staff and eligible students be vaccinated as soon as possible. The vaccine has proven safe and is the most effective means for stopping community transmission of the virus. Our schools and the lives of our families have been thrown into chaos since the return of in-person instruction due to staffing shortages, a sharp increase in the number of  infections among younger individuals, mandatory quarantines of exposed students that are unpredictable and therefore impossible for working parents to plan around, students bringing infections home from school to other vulnerable individuals, etc.  The only way we will achieve a sufficiently high vaccination rate is to make the vaccine mandatory for all eligible individuals.