The School District 57 meeting tonight (Tuesday) covered a lot of topics, but the one many parents and teachers are concerned about will have to take some more time.
That’s according to Board Chair Sharel Warrington, who said making a decision about a vaccine policy will need to be done slowly to be done right.
“What we’ve been tasked to engage in is to look at those guidelines, and how do they impact the health and safety of our students. How would changes in our policies impact the health and safety of our employees, and that we do that in a very thoughtful and deep way.”
The BC Government left the implementation of vaccine mandates up to local school boards and offered a set of guidelines to try and help them make informed decisions.
“So the guidelines clearly state that boards that decide to implement a vaccine policy as a workplace health and safety measure should allow time for consultation with local partners, and should be transparent in their communications with staff,” said Warrington.
She added that they encourage everyone to get vaccinated from COVID-19, and unfortunately there is a lot of conflicting information out there.
“There is information out there that is leading people to not to trust the science, not to trust what we need to know to make those good decisions. So there’s an education piece that needs to be addressed as well.”
Warrington said a media release on their vaccine policy process will come out tomorrow to address people’s concerns.