Posted on 11/10/2021 8:34:32 AM PST by Kaslin
Back on October 1st, Richmond, Virginia public schools superintendent Jason Kamras followed President Joe Biden’s lead and announced a vaccine mandate for all teachers and staff in his district. Those failing to comply would have their pay withheld and could potentially face the loss of their jobs if they didn’t come into line with the policy. But that was then and this is now. The schools were already struggling to fill more than 100 vacancies, almost all of which were driven by the mandate. This week, on Monday night, the School Board was forced to approve 29 more resignations, so at the same meeting, they voted by a two-to-one margin to dial back Kamras’ mandate and allow those opposed to being vaccinated the options of submitting weekly negative COVID tests instead. (Fox News)
Richmond’s School Board has reversed course on a plan to discipline staff who didn’t comply with a coronavirus vaccine mandate after numerous teachers resigned over the measure, reports say.On Monday night, the board voted 6-3 to prevent superintendent Jason Kamras from withholding pay or firing teachers who refused get the vaccine “if said teachers or staff agree to weekly COVID testing provided by RPS,” according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
The newspaper reports that Kamras still stands by his decision to mandate the vaccine, saying “a mandate isn’t a mandate if there are no consequences” and that it increased the district’s overall vaccination rate to around 92%.
The school district will be paying for the weekly COVID testing for those who choose to go that route. Also, anyone who had their pay docked as a result of the mandate will be reimbursed that money. There was no end date specified for the compromise, so even if they manage to fill all of the vacancies, this policy looks as if it might be remaining in effect.
Now, was that really so difficult? Right from the beginning, it should have been obvious that there were going to be some number of teachers and workers in the schools who would opt to not be vaccinated. Instead of stomping his feet and declaring a “my way or the highway” approach, the Superintendent could have opened a conversation to seek other options and a weekly testing plan seems like it would have been the immediately obvious choice.
Granted, the School Board hasn’t been given a very good example to follow by either the federal government or many municipal governments around the nation. These policies are all over the map, with some groups, such as the military, having a vax-only policy with strict punishments for those who do not comply. The same goes for many police departments and some healthcare workers. But others, including many federal workers, are given weekly testing as a choice.
As I have asked here in the past, whatever happened to “following the science?” Either weekly testing is a safe approach or it isn’t. How can it be good enough for one group of employees but not for another? None of these people have secret, magical immunity spells that allow them to take a more casual approach. And when you’re tossing around these varying mandates in a haphazard fashion, it should have been obvious that people were being left without a clear indicator of the best policy to follow.
If Richmond’s school district can figure this out, so can everyone else. I’m convinced that the courts will probably continue to uphold vaccine mandates, at least for the time being. (But only until “the emergency is over,” whenever that’s supposed to happen.) We could be offering the same choice to police officers, healthcare workers, and everyone else as well. And if we had just done that from the beginning it wouldn’t have spiraled out of control into the massive political crapstorm we’re witnessing now.
It obliviously is difficult, because vaxxed folks can and do get infected with the CCPvirust and do transmit it to others. If weekly testing unvaxxed makes sense (which it clearly does not), then the vaxxed must be tested weekly under the same reasoning. To do otherwise is nonsense.
I don’t know about Virginia, but here in NY, the teachers’ unions are very powerful. No politician in Albany would say boo to a goose without making sure they the teachers agreed.
Yep. Even if the population is 100% vax'd.
Weekly testing isn’t acceptable either. ANY forced medical procedure is NOT acceptable.
... and if they test both the vaccinated and unvaccinated, then the unvaccinated heathens go unpunished by their wannabe masters.
Joe cares.
See Joe wave his hands and flap his gums.
Joe cares.
I was born and grew up in Germany and went to school in my home town. We never had spelling tests. Instead our teacher read to us parts from a book which she repeated several times and we had to write it in a booklet that she collected at the end and graded it. It was called a diktat. In Germany you get graded by numbers 1 to 6. I got always 1, 1- at the worsted a 2. If you wrote a word wrong you had to spell it and you were put at shame.
It’s not about the virus any longer. It’s about control. Full stop.
To quote a former President (or at least the SNL parody version) - Nope. Not gonna do it, wouldn’t be prudent.
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