Division administration with Prairie South Schools (PSSD) will draft a policy that makes vaccines mandatory for staff after trustees held a heated discussion about whether to proceed with the move.
The board of education debated a recommendation during its Oct. 5 meeting about whether to authorize the director of education to create an administrative procedure that required all people in PSSD facilities to be either fully vaccinated or present a recent negative COVID-19 test.
After more than an hour of passionate debate and amendments, the board voted 7-3 to have education director Ryan Boughen create a pandemic-related administrative procedure, which includes employees and excludes all students.
Opposed were Mary Jukes, John Bumbac and Darcy Pryor.
In favour were Todd Johnson, Shawn Davidson, Gisele Wilson, Lew Young, Robert Bachmann, Crystal Froese and Brett Hagan.
Once Boughen develops a draft procedure, he will bring it back for official approval.
A slippery slope
“I have requested that we seek legal advice regarding our authority as a board to recommend policy procedure without knowing if our request is supported by case law. This request has been disregarded,” said vice-chair Pryor.
“As a result, we are left to instinctively follow others. I ask that we be leaders and we take our time to make wise and careful decisions, decisions that have far-reaching consequences.”
Pryor has heard the rationale that staff and volunteers be vaccinated to provide a safe environment for students and staff. However, she believes this thinking is a “slippery slope” since she failed to understand how this directive could be mandated for one group and not another.
In less than one month, she continued, the division has moved from not asking about people’s private health matters to mandating masks and potentially mandating vaccines.
“It goes against my own ethics and morals to force, coerce or mandate an individual to act in opposition of their own morals, values and human rights … ,” Pryor added.
“I value the importance of vaccines and as a community doing our part to be safe. I worry about the long-term consequences if we do not take our time to carefully consider this administrative procedure.”
Speaking for the voiceless
It’s unfortunate that the pandemic has negatively affected society so much, including education, but trustees need to remember that youths under age 12 can’t speak for themselves, said Young. However, a vaccine is coming for this age group — a development he championed — since they are vulnerable.
Young knows people who have contracted COVID-19, ended up in the hospital, and later died. He noted that that could happen to any of them, which is why the board was obligated to provide a safe environment for everyone in PSSD.
The provincial government decided that vaccine passports were necessary, while other school divisions have taken the lead on developing similar policies, he added. Thus, the PSSD board can create an administrative procedure mandating the same thing.
Enforcing the directive
The board might have the authority to order division administration to create this procedure but enforcing it and asking staff to reveal private health matters could lead to dismissals and firings and a lack of bus drivers, teachers and janitors, said Bumbac.
Furthermore, it’s known that vaccinated people can still transmit the coronavirus, so they can also put students’ safety in jeopardy, he indicated.
“There is no doubt in my mind that if we pass this, a month (or) two months from now, we will be asked to be able to do that (ask for vaccination status) for students,” he continued, which would likely create pushback — just as masks did — from parents.
Bumbac “firmly believed that it (was) coercion (and) manipulation to be able to get more people vaccinated,” while he was worried that this could lead to lawsuits and the police being called to enforce this measure.
An ‘hyper-politicized’ matter
Creating this procedure could make principals vice-principals
responsible for reviewing vaccine passports, which would create backlash among some parents attending extracurricular activities or sports, said Davidson.
Since this is an “extremely politically charged” and “hyper-politicized” issue, he was nervous about the implications if the board extended the mandate beyond staff and volunteers.
Vaccines for non-school staff
Based on the initial motion, Bachmann wondered how the division would define facilities, considering there are school-sanctioned activities in non-PSSD buildings in places such as Hutterite colonies. He wondered if those areas would be excluded from the procedure.
“ … we need to think about the implications, especially in those non-Prairie South-owned facilities — volunteers, German teachers, people who are not our employees but have regular interactions with our students,” he said, adding he wondered how far the board would push enforcement.
Let the province decide
Staff have managed this crisis for the past 20 months and filled a role they weren’t hired to do, Froese said. Meanwhile, the board isn’t responsible for making this decision since it’s a provincial government matter.
As a city councillor, Froese knows what the pandemic has done to Moose Jaw, how people have died and health-care professionals are “maxed out.” She is fearful for students who can’t be vaccinated, especially since COVID-19 has evolved.
“But in the greater sense of good and to try to stop something bad from happening — that’s my greatest fear in all this, is that we have something tragic happen in our school division,” she added. “I don’t know if I could sleep at night knowing if I turned a policy or procedure down about this, and a few months later, that happens.”
The next PSSD board meeting is Tuesday, Nov. 2.
