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home / 世界杯决赛2022

ottawa-carleton school board puts 53 unvaccinated staff on unpaid leave

that represents 0.4 per cent of the 11,923 staff at the english-language public school board, which is the largest in ottawa.

by jacquie miller

nov 8 2021
read time 4 minute read
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the ottawa-carleton district school board has placed 53 staff members, including 23 teachers, on leave without pay because they declined to get vaccinated for covid-19.
that represents 0.4 per cent of the 11,923 staff at the english-language public school board, the largest in ottawa.
the ottawa-carleton board is one of a handful in ontario to go beyond provincial requirements and require staff to be vaccinated. the board allows vaccine exemptions for medical or human-rights based reasons, but the number of those approved is tiny: 31 people as of oct. 15.
no unvaccinated staff without exemptions work directly with children at the board, spokesperson darcy knoll said.
he said administrators had managed the 53 vacancies across the district by hiring fully vaccinated casual staff and occasional teachers.
the board did not provide a further breakdown of job categories, but knoll said the 53 people on leave as of oct. 29 included both permanent and term employees.
the statistics were released in the midst of a heated debate in ontario over mandatory vaccinations.
the provincial government has required vaccinations for staff in long-term care homes, but has resisted pressure to do the same for health-care workers and school board employees. the province requires employees in those sectors to declare their vaccination status and to take rapid covid-19 tests if they aren’t vaccinated.
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employers can also implement their own vaccine mandates.
education minister stephen lecce said last month that, if he required all school staff to be vaccinated, 50,000 employees could potentially be terminated.
that was based on the ministry’s calculation that 85 per cent of school board employees across the province had attested to being fully vaccinated.
mpp marit stiles, the education critic for the ndp, accused lecce of throwing numbers around that were “utter fiction” and failing to consider that mandates boosted vaccination rates.
the statistics are hard to pin down, partly because of the relatively large number of casual workers at schools. it’s also difficult to compare between boards because they report data differently.
in ottawa, staff vaccination rates are similar at both english-language school boards, although one of them requires vaccination and the other does not.
at the ottawa-carleton board, 92 per cent of employees were fully vaccinated as of oct. 15, and 4.3 per cent of employees — 522 people — had not filled out the form. but most of those people haven’t worked at the board this year or are on leave, knoll said.
the ottawa catholic school board reports two sets of statistics.
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among employees, 94.84 per cent were fully vaccinated as of oct. 20, and 3.5 per cent had not submitted the form. among occasional and temporary staff, 82.63 per cent were fully vaccinated and 14.58 per cent had not filled out the form.
the catholic board has a “mandatory testing and vaccination policy,” but it does not require staff to be vaccinated.
the policy says “required individuals must submit proof of vaccination confirming that they are fully vaccinated,” and had until oct. 12 to provide proof of their first shot.
however, the policy also says that staff who don’t submit proof or get any shots can take rapid covid-19 tests instead. that is what the province requires.
the dates for first and second shots were included in the policy to encourage staff to get vaccinated “sooner rather than later,” said sharlene hunter, a spokesperson for the board.
the policy also says unvaccinated staff can be given additional ppe or transferred to other jobs.
if employees at the catholic board refuse to take rapid tests or attest to their vaccination status, they can face discipline, “up to and including termination.” any unvaccinated employee who refused to take rapid tests would be placed on unpaid leave, hunter said.

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how many employees are taking rapid testing? has anyone been disciplined for refusing to attest or take rapid tests? do any unvaccinated staff work directly with children, been given additional ppe or transferred to other jobs? has the board given any vaccine exemptions on human rights grounds?
hunter declined to answer those questions, saying that, to protect staff confidentiality, “only those directly involved in the implementation of the mandatory vaccinations policy have access to that information.”
the statement also said, “we will only be releasing the data the province is asking that we publish, thus protecting the privacy of our employees.”
the ottawa-carleton policy is mandatory vaccination. staff can be placed on unpaid leave if they aren’t vaccinated by the deadline  — sept. 30 for a first shot — or have an approved exemption.
the toronto district school board, the largest in the province, also requires staff to be vaccinated.
the toronto district school board data on staff vaccination as of nov. 5.
the toronto district school board data on staff vaccination as of nov. 5.
at that board, 95 permanent staff who were not attested to being vaccinated had been placed on “non-disciplinary administrative leave without pay,” as of nov. 5, spokesperson ryan bird said. that included just over a dozen teachers, he said.

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another 609 occasional staff were also placed on leave, but the vast majority of those people had not worked at the board this year, he said.
the toronto board has just under 42,000 employees.
jmiller@postmedia.com

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