Vaccine decision should never have been left to school board

The Central Okanagan School District made the right call by approving a vaccine mandate for teachers and staff.

This controversial decision, however, should have never been their call to make.

Trustees across the province are being thrown in front of the bus by the provincial government and the province’s health authorities.

Many school board decisions have already been taken out of the hands of elected trustees and are mandated by Victoria.

Why is this one an exception?

All eyes were on Kelowna Wednesday night as their Zoom meeting attracted more than 950 viewers — something that’s unheard of for a school board meeting.

This item should have never been placed near the end of an already busy agenda. Chair Moyra Baxter and her team of senior administrators knew — or at least they should have known — how much interest there was in this issue. It received significant press attention in advance and boards from across the province were keenly interested in the outcome.

Instead, everyone had to wait two hours for things to get started.

Baxter lost control of the meeting early. Her request to know if a parent or teacher was asking the question was not surprising with her history of trying to control the narrative.

As teachers’ union president Susan Bauhart correctly noted, many teachers are parents.

Trustee Lee Tiede, a self-professed expert in gender identity, is apparently an infectious disease expert as well.

“This is not a vaccine that is working … I’m totally opposed to this mandate,” Tiede said.

Tiede and Amy Geistlinger were the two dissenting votes in what ended as a 5-2 split decision. Geistlinger, as you may recall, was the lone trustee who didn’t respond to a question from The Daily Courier on the issue, but boasts about how open and transparent she is.

Listening to the debate the one trustee who made the most sense in their comments was Julia Fraser. Norah Bowman, who made the motion, wasn’t convincing.

Back to the provincial health office.

School trustees are often parents, wanting to get involved with their children’s educational experience. Very few are medical doctors. They don’t have the expertise to make a decision either for or against.

This decision, one that affects the safety of our children and entire school communities, needs to be made by medical experts.

Passing the buck to local boards is cowardice on the part of the provincial government.

And where are the BC Liberals in all of this? Silent.

Interior Health (the Grinches who pulled funding from Pathways Addictions Centre with three months’ notice) has the power to mandate this. Again, their leadership is clearly lacking at a time when the community needs them most.

Now that Central Okanagan District 23 has made this official, look for all kinds of pressure to be placed on smaller boards in Penticton, Vernon and Oliver.

I don’t envy our school board trustees.