The Chair of Quesnel’s Board of Education says they were completely caught off guard by an order from Dr. Henry saying proof of vaccination will be needed for school staff in BC.
Tony Goulet says it also came down with very little meat to it.
“We’ve been working on how we do this and it’s still a little bit confusing on what the process is going to be moving forward.  As you know Delta School District implemented a vaccine mandate and they gave a timeline of 6 weeks, but we’re not sure if that’s the timeline that we’re supposed to be using, or are Districts supposed to do their own timeline ?”
Goulet says the mandate came with no explanation and no plan in place.
“Yes, that is a fair assessment. I believe part of the plan is working with the health authorities so Northern Health to look at how we do the vaccinated plan or what that looks like, so there are some pieces there that we still have to work through.”
Goulet says he’s not sure what has changed since the province said that School Boards were the employers and had to make this decision.
“It was left up to Boards at one point. Now it has changed, now we are mandated to collect this information, and they’re calling it information so that is the confusing part. What are we going to do with this information. But they’re saying the collection of information on whether people are vaccinated or unvaccinated.”
Asked if Trustees had to be vaccinated, Goulet says there was some controversy over that, adding that he is not sure at this point.