As districts insist on vaccines, some teachers push back
PORTLAND, Ore. — Some of the biggest school systems in the U.S. are taking a hard line with teachers and staff members who are not yet vaccinated against COVID-19: Get a jab or lose your job.
Most teachers already are vaccinated, and national teachers’ unions have endorsed vaccine mandates, but the policies have sparked protests from educators and, in some cases, pushback from local district leaders who fear large numbers of departures.
In Oregon, where school staffers statewide are required to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 18, the board for the 7,500-student district of Redmond last week passed a resolution protesting the mandate and mandatory mask-wearing in schools after “significant” opposition.
“This could do serious damage to the other mandate that we have, which is to provide excellent education to the children and the families of our district,” board member Michael Summers said. “We’re attempting to speak for people.”
Teachers in many school districts with vaccine requirements can opt out as long as they submit to regular testing for the coronavirus, but New York City, Philadelphia, Chicago and St. Louis are among a growing list of places that are limiting exemptions to bona fide medical and religious reasons. Washington and Oregon have adopted similarly strict vaccination policies statewide.
As a new school year begins, governments are taking a harder line on vaccinations to ward off the highly contagious delta variant, which has sent children to hospital intensive care beds in record numbers. Many students are too young to get the vaccine, which is available only to those 12 and over.
“This is to ensure that the children we all cherish are safe, that their families are reassured,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said last week.
Underscoring the risks of classroom infections, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention presented a case study in its weekly report Friday detailing how an unvaccinated teacher in Marin County, California, spread the virus to 22 of the instructor’s 24 students at school. The CDC said the teacher sometimes read aloud to the students while unmasked.
Some school staff members who have held off on getting vaccinated say they would leave their jobs before taking the shots.
Marlene Washington, an elementary school teacher in New York City, said as she protested de Blasio’s order outside City Hall last week that she is considering retirement after two decades in the classroom. She said she questions the long-term safety of the vaccines.
“I’m still undecided about what to do,” said Washington, 62. “But I do know that I’m not taking the vaccine.”
Kiara Coleman, a food service worker for Philadelphia schools, said she isn’t budging despite uncertainty over the consequences of refusing a vaccine.
“I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I find out more details of the mandate. I would hate to throw away all that time I have with the schools,” said Coleman, who also has concerns about potential effects of vaccines.