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November 17, 2021 - 7:30 AM
Many of the school districts in the Thompson and Okanagan regions are conducting surveys of staff to find out how they feel about mandatory COVID vaccines.
The provincial government has left it up to individual school boards to decide if their staff need to be vaccinated but has put out guidelines about surveying workers and bringing in vaccine mandates.
Some Thompson and Okanagan school districts have finished surveying their staff, others are still in the process, but few are disclosing what their findings are and boards will get the results at private closed-door meetings.
One exception is School District 22 in Vernon that has posted its survey results online and will discuss them at an open board meeting Nov. 17.
Its survey had a 74% response rate and 92% claimed to be double vaccinated. That’s higher than the provincial total of 86.5%.
That school district has 10 schools where there have been potential COVID exposures.
The region’s largest school district, the Central Okanagan, has 16 schools with potential exposures, half of which are in West Kelowna.
It surveyed its employees and only 60% of its 4,000 staff members responded so they’re looking at requiring all staff to declare their vaccination status.
“We’re developing a procedure that will include that,” school superintendent Kevin Kaardal told iNFOnews.ca “We’re early on in that process. We have to meet with local unions first.”
The survey was anonymous and the results are being discussed in camera. He would not estimate when he will go to the board about the possible mandatory disclosure requirement.
The Kamloops Thompson school district, which has seven schools with potential exposures, surveyed its staff, asking for their perspective on a vaccination policy and whether they would support it.
That survey ended on Nov. 12 and results will go to an in camera board meeting on Nov. 22.
The North Okanagan Shuswap school district includes Enderby, which has the lowest vaccination rate in the entire Interior Health region.
It has nine schools with potential exposures, including two in Enderby. That survey will go to an in camera board meeting on Nov. 23.
The Okanagan Skaha and Okanagan Similkameen school districts only have three potential exposures between them.
The B.C. Teachers’ Federation surveyed its members from Sept. 22 to Oct. 11 and got a 40% response rate.
That survey found that 94.1% of respondents were fully vaccinated and 1.1% partially vaccinated. As of Oct. 11, about 82% of all British Columbians were fully vaccinated.
Of the five provincial health regions, Vancouver Coastal had the highest teacher vaccination rate at 96.8% while Interior Health was at 91.2%, just ahead of the Northern Health region at 90.5%. Vancouver Island came in at 95.6% and Fraser Health was at 94.1%.
READ MORE: No mask mandate for younger grades at Kamloops, Kelowna schools despite high rate of potential COVID exposures
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