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Teachers in the Central Okanagan have been told not to take a stand on COVID vaccinations in their classrooms, according to the school board chairperson.

But 31 of them (plus another four marked Anonymous), along with dozens of other school staff, have put their names to a 31-page anti-vaccine letter that threatens school trustees with criminal charges if they impose mandatory vaccines on their staff.

The letter was presented to the Central Okanagan Board of Education earlier this month after the board agreed to require all 4,000 of its staff members to disclose their vaccination status by Jan. 15.

READ MORE: Central Okanagan ahead of the curve on staff vaccination in schools

The letter contained 23 pages of detailed false arguments against vaccinations with dozens of links to supporting documents and four pages of typed names, including job titles and locations.

The list includes 39 Certified Education Assistants, custodians, bus drivers, librarians, councillors and more.

“What they are saying is outrageous,” board chair Moira Baxter told iNFOnews.ca. “It is outrageous. The information that they gave us in that thing they wrote, an awful lot of it was absolutely outrageous. It’s very embarrassing that educated people are sending out that sort of stuff.”

One of the most extreme statements in the document is a claim that vaccines are killing more people than they are helping. It suggests trustees can be charged with murder under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act of Canada and be sentenced to life imprisonment if they bring in a vaccine mandate for staff.

It also cites obscure laws like the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. None of that is true or accurate.

“There’s this ‘lawyer’ in either Chilliwack or Abbottsford who drafted this sort of threatening letter,” Rich Overgaard, media relations officer with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation, told iNFOnews.ca. “It’s been going around the internet for a couple of months now.”

It’s part of an ongoing anti-vaccine campaign that has been waged against school trustees for months.

“We’ve had lots of threats,” Baxter said, noting there’s nothing in the letter that she hasn’t seen before. “We’ve actually had to get the RCMP to contact people who have phoned.”

READ MORE: Kelowna school board chair may be the most harassed in B.C. by anti-vaxers

Whether the people whose names were listed in this latest letter are pushing their beliefs on students is something that will only come to light if the students themselves complain, either to their parents or school staff.

“In my district, if we heard from a parent that a teacher was utilizing their position to spread misinformation around vaccines, I believe that would lead to some kind of performance review, a discussion at the very least with the principal so it’s a recorded event so if it happens again there’s a record of it happening,” Stephanie Higginson, president of the B.C. School Trustees Association and a Nanaimo/Ladysmith trustee, told iNFOnews.ca. “If somebody was using their classroom and spreading misinformation about vaccines and vaccine safety, in my district, I believe that would warrant some sort of disciplinary intervention at the very least.”

Determining what is or is not being said to students about vaccinations can be difficult.

“I do not know what they are saying to their students,” Baxter said. “I am not in their classrooms so I do not know if they are spouting on about all this stuff or not.”

“Teachers have always had an incredible amount of autonomy,” she added. “It’s in the School Act.”

The proper process is for a parent, or a student, to bring it up with the teacher and, if not satisfied, talk to the principal, superintendent and, ultimately the school board.

The B.C. Teachers’ Federation is not going to discipline its members if they do deliver anti-vaccination messages to their students.

“It isn’t anything we could take action on or would,” Overgaard, the Federation’s media officer, said. “As a union, we represent all our members.”

Discipline is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, which licences teachers in B.C.

“The Commissioner for Teacher Regulation is an independent statutory decision maker and is responsible for reviewing reports and complaints about teachers’ conduct or competence,” the Ministry stated in an email. “School Districts can (and in some circumstances must) make reports to the Commissioner about teacher conduct. The circumstances in which they can make a report are subject to the School Act and include circumstances where a school superintendent considers it is in the public interest to make a report.”

Members of the public can also submit complaints.

Such complaints can lead to investigations and hearings that could ultimately result in the teacher’s certificate being suspended, the email said.

What astounds Baxter, however, is that no one seems to be bothered by teachers or school staff taking such harsh anti-vaccine stands.

“Why are all these people so silent?” Baxter asked. “It’s quite shocking that people aren’t concerned about this.”

EDITOR'S NOTE: We opted not to include a list of teacher names on the letter until we can confirm if each teacher agreed to add their name to the list.

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