A new public health order giving regional health authorities the power to obtain the COVID vaccination status of teachers and staff isn’t having any immediate impact on Catholic or other independent schools, say school officials.
Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry released a health order Jan. 17, directed to B.C. school boards and their employees, authorizing local medical health officers to direct school boards and independent school authorities to obtain the vaccination status of school staff.
Deacon Henk Luyten, superintendent of Catholic Independent Schools Vancouver Archdiocese, said the order allows local health officers to respond to outbreaks in schools by directing school authorities to obtain the vaccination status of staff.
The order does not require teachers and staff to disclose their vaccination status, but rather allows health officials to request the disclosure status if they see fit, said Shawn Chisholm, executive director of the Federation of Independent School Associations in B.C.
Each staff member would be obligated to provide proof of vaccination to their employer, who would then report the vaccination status of employees “on an aggregate basis by basis by school” without identifying individuals, Chisholm said.
Individual staff who do not comply with the request will be considered unvaccinated in the event that mandates or restrictions are later put in place.
Neither Deacon Luyten or Chisholm are aware of any school authorities who have been directed to collect vaccination information yet, although school boards in Delta and Revelstoke have announced vaccine mandates for their staff. Deacon Luyten said Catholic schools are not considering vaccine mandates.
In a recent press conference, Henry said the order is intended to support the school districts in “decision making about mandates.”
“I have been clear that it is the employers who are responsible for making those decisions. It is the school districts that are the employers.”
The health order justifies itself by saying that a lack of information on the parts of various boards of education, public or otherwise, interferes with the suppression of COVID-19 and “constitutes a health hazard under the Public Health Act.”
In an interview with Global News, B.C. Teachers’ Federation president Teri Mooring said the order does not go far enough: “It should have been a provincial mandate; we don’t agree that the onus should be on individual boards.”
