Sunday October 24, 2021 | VICTORIA, BC
by Mary P Brooke, Editor | Island Social Trends
In the wake of recent announcements by Premier John Horgan and Provincial Health Officer Dr Bonnie Henry that each school district would be required to decide about vaccine mandates for teachers and staff, on Friday October 22 the promised guidelines were announced.
The guidelines were developed to support school boards and independent school authorities in their decisions on implementing vaccine requirements for their employees, said the BC Ministry of Education in a news release before the weekend.
“We stand ready to work with elected school boards” who “work tirelessly”, said Premier Horgan on October 7.
Trustees to decide:
“From the beginning of the pandemic we have worked together – to keep students safely learning in-class, to encourage all eligible British Columbians to get vaccinated and to make sure school safety plans are robust and supported,” said Jennifer Whiteside, Minister of Education.
“With guidelines now available, trustees can make decisions around vaccination policies that work best for their communities as we work together to continue to support a culture of vaccination in our schools.”
On South Vancouver Island there are four school districts: Greater Victoria (SD61), Sooke (SD62), Saanich (SD63), and Cowichan Valley (SD79). Each of those school districts provided their comments a few weeks ago, while awaiting the guidelines. See school district comments here.
Collaborative effort:
The guidelines were created by the Ministry of Education and its partners including the BC School Trustees Association, the BC Teachers’ Federation, CUPE, the First Nations Education Steering Committee, the Federation of Independent Schools Association, and school district leadership associations, in consultation with the Office of the Provincial Health Officer.
This work was also supported by the BC Public School Employers Association.
Why vaccination:
“The guidelines provide a roadmap to enable school boards to make an informed decision on a mandatory vaccination policy and help school boards to ensure that the continued delivery of safe in-person education is a top priority,” the Ministry of Education statement said.
“The Ministry of Education will continue working with school boards to ensure they have the tools, resources and information they need to support this process.”
BC government and service sector employees are already mandated to be fully vaccinated (i.e. two doses) with COVID-19 vaccination.
Vaccination helps reduce the risk of serious infection, hospitalization and death.
Public health protocols:
These guidelines build on the existing K-12 health and safety measures including daily health checks, hand washing, staying home when sick, masks for all students and staff and improved ventilation systems.
The COVID virus is known to be airborne. Masks are mandated in all schools for all persons in the school (students, teachers, staff, and visitors); Grades K to 3 were added to that mandate as of October 4, 2021.
Responsiveness:
Government says it will “continue to be responsive to changes in the pandemic and will continue working with parents, teachers, school districts, First Nations, Indigenous Rightsholders and all education partners to make sure schools are safe for students, teachers and staff”.
Throughout the pandemic (first officially declared in mid-March 2020), the government and public health response has been prompt and appropriate in some areas, but considered to have been slow or missing the mark in other areas.
The BC Immunization rollout of COVID vaccines has been robust. The vaccines are free and available at various clinics around all health authorities.
===== LINKS:
The guidelines are available online (Oct 22, 2021): https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/download/8944B0CE48D644D1B46951369F458B86
Mandatory COVID vaccination for teachers left up to school districts (Oct 8, 2021)