ATHABASCA — A vaccination procedure policy is not a vaccine mandate, says Aspen View Public Schools (AVPS) Supt. Neil O’Shea.
The issue was raised during an emergency meeting Nov. 8 when trustee Cindy Lutz called for a point of order asking why vaccinations needed to be brought up at an emergency meeting and what the procedure was surrounding advertising the meeting.
“It is very clear that an issue this important needs to be notified to our public and certainly to our staff. I object to the issue of vaccinations being placed on the agenda today,” she said. “Staff have contacted me over the last few days and are horrified this item has come up so quickly. And I speak on behalf of those people who believe that this issue does not need to appear so quickly on a special agenda.
“I want you to check the rules whether or not this is an issue that needs to be dealt with at this special meeting at this time. Could it not have been placed on the next meeting agenda where proper notification to all citizens in our community could have been given?”
O’Shea explained Alberta Minister of Health Jason Copping, and Minister of Education Adriana LaGrange, sent notice Oct. 3 to all school boards recommending the development of vaccination protocols for staff.
“We had a board meeting on Oct. 7, which was our final meeting prior to the election,” he said. “Between Oct. 3 and 7 there was not sufficient time for us to get together a legal opinion and to gather information that was happening around the province.”
He added at the Oct. 7 meeting trustees decided to leave the decision up to the next board and considering the next regular board meeting is scheduled for Nov. 25, administration wanted to add it to the emergency meeting agenda so a proposed administrative policy could be drafted for review at that meeting.
“We certainly needed to juggle a lot of board meetings around to accommodate our organizational meeting and trustee professional development,” said O’Shea. “So, any opportunity for us to meet as a board would have been bumped down to the end of November.”
He added leaving the decision until then after receiving direction from the minister would be detrimental.
“There is angst among staff and among people and to leave it, I think for eight full weeks, after we got direction from the ministry, I think would be negligent on our part to do that,” he said.
Lutz reiterated she did not feel five days' notice on the website or social media was ample time for staff or the public to be aware of the contentious addition to the agenda however.
“I don't think it's our protocol to advertise on social media,” said chair Candy Nikipelo. “We use our official website to advertise for that and I believe we're following our policy with the five days of advertising prior to the meeting. I think we are within our parameters.”
Reading from a prepared statement, Lutz again raised a point of order, asking why the information on the website was one sentence long when the trustee package was far more comprehensive.
“Except for information that deals with legal matters, all background information relevant to this topic must be in the hands of the public in my opinion, and even more importantly, our public deserves to know what the recommendation of our superintendent is prior to the meeting,” said Lutz. “They have a right to know, Madam Chair, why has this information not been given to our public prior to the meeting?”
Once the actual debate opened about creating the administrative policy, Lutz brought up mandates, which O’Shea quickly pointed out that since staff have options, it can not be considered a mandate.
“We are not mandating that any staff member inject something into their bodies that they don't want. What a vaccination protocol does is it sets up options to meet our mandate of keeping people safe,” he said. “Within those options, there are vaccinations – which over 90 per cent of our staff have chosen to receive, there are exemptions for medical/religion reasons, or there is 72-hour rapid testing that is available for employees showing negative test results. So, in no way, shape, or form, is this a mandatory vaccination discussion.”
Based on established protocols, the first few weeks any rapid testing will be paid for by AVPS, with employees paying for their own tests after a certain date. O’Shea added the Alberta Teachers Association (ATA) which represents teachers and aides and the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the union representing AVPS support staff, agree with the protocol.
“The (ATA) says that we can not impose disciplinary measures for non-compliance, but provide non-disciplinary alternatives to vaccination (like) ongoing submission of test results, reassignment to online teaching, leave of absence without pay as a last resort,” he said. “So again, the ATA has made it very clear that they would not support mandatory vaccinations, but they certainly support any protocols put in place in a school division that allows for the optimum amount of flexibility for their members.”
After an hour of debate the vote to direct administration to develop a vaccination administration policy was unanimously supported by trustees and will now come back to the Nov. 25 meeting for final approval.
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