The Vancouver School Board (VSB) will not mandate staff need to be vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus.
In a statement the board says they looked at and discussed a range of implications of a vaccine mandate and have decided that teachers, school staff and other board employees will not need to be vaccinated to continue working.
While they're not going to force staff to be vaccinated, they do want to see everyone vaccinated for the safety of everyone.
"We continue to strongly encourage anyone who has yet to be vaccinated to make an appointment and do their part to keep everyone healthy and safe,” says VSB chair Carmen Cho in a press release.
The province issued guidelines earlier this school year for school boards to follow if they choose to have a mandate, but the document doesn't explicitly state a mandate should be created. The BC Teachers Federation stated in early October the union wouldn't oppose any mandates and supported a provincial mandatory vaccine for Kindergarten to Grade 12 staff.
BCTF president Teri Mooring added, in a public letter, that a district-by-district option for mandates would be the wrong approach.
"Any vaccine mandate would need to be provincially implemented and done equitably. We can’t have unequal treatment of workers in the public education system," she wrote.
Many other public services have vaccine mandates, including all health workers in the province, City of Vancouver staff, parks staff and library staff. RCMP and Vancouver city police officers do not have mandates.
