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Unvaccinated Central Okanagan teachers will not have to pay for weekly tests under planned mandate

Vax mandate next steps

Meetings will be held over the coming days to decide how to implement a vaccine mandate for staff in Central Okanagan schools after the elected board approved the idea Wednesday night.

The BC Public School Employers Association has reached letters of agreement with the BC Teachers Federation and CUPE and now the details have to be ironed out with local union representatives.

“We’re going to go through that process in the next couple of days,” said Kevin Kaardal, Superintendent of Schools/CEO-School District 23. “Part of that means that there’s another grace period for people to decide whether they want to get vaccinated, test, or take a leave from their position.

“What’s great is that no one loses their job. There’s also choice within this agreement to choose to come to work, continue working, as long as you’re part of a regular testing program organized by the district in compliance with a federal government testing program, I believe,” he adds.

The tests would be provided for free from the federal government, but the school district would incur costs related to administering the testing program.

Details on the federal test kits are still being worked out, but during Wednesday’s meeting, Kaardal reassured Central Okanagan Teachers Association President Susan Bauhart that, under the mandate, the weekly testing for unvaccinated staff would not be done using tests from another program for teachers recently announced by the province.

Bauhart said she’s been hearing a lot of concerns about how many students and staff are coming down with the Omicron variant of COVID-19, but yet most teachers can’t get tested under current public health guidelines.

“You just look around. This person’s away, that person’s away. And running a program in a classroom when you’ve got this group of kids away one day and the next few days it’s a different group, it’s challenging. People’s nerves are shot. They’re frayed, they’re frustrated," said Bauhart.

The COTA president also had several questions for the board after trustees approved the mandate Wednesday night.

She wanted to know the date when employees must be vaccinated, if there will be medical exemptions allowed, how privacy provisions will be dealt with, and whether there will be an end date for when employees have to decide if they will take unpaid leave.

The letters of agreement between BCPSEA, the BCTF and CUPE Presidents’ Council are set to expire June 30, 2022.

The superintendent is confident the local unions will work with SD 23 to implement the mandate.

“I’m going to be an optimist. We’re going to get co-operation and move forward in a good way and really be able to give our employees choice about how they respond,” said Kaardal.



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