After Windsor City Council backed the public health unit's call for all elementary school students to be vaccinated before they enter a school, the Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board wants the province to go a step further.
Speaking on AM800's The Morning Drive, Board chair Fulvio Valentinis says they'd like to see Ontario require all teachers and staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a position they've held since sending a letter to the various stakeholders back in August.
"Since then there have been other boards that have taken similar positions, including the Association of Catholic School Boards of Ontario," he continued. "The feedback we're getting from parents is they don't want those schools closed, they want the schools open and they want them to be safe."
Valentinis says it's been extremely disruptive to have certain kids in affected classes and cohorts switching back and forth from in-person to online learning, which they were trying to avoid this at the start of the year.
He says currently they've got about 95 per cent of their staff fully vaccinated, and while they do have the power to mandate vaccinations among staff, when it comes to students it's provincial jurisdiction.
It's controlled by the Immunization of School Pupils act which sets out that for students to attend school they have to vaccinated against a list of diseases.
"What we simply said to the province was you've already got the legislation in place, just add this to the list of the nine diseases that they have to be vaccinated against. Add COVID-19 to that, that would be the simplest way of doing it. You don't need new legislation, just simply an amendment to the existing provincial legislation," Valentinis stated.
Valentinis says since they sent their letter in August, many other schools around the province have come forward to ask the province to designate COVID-19 as one of the diseases that students need to be protected against.
He says they're just following what the medical community has been saying to try and protect both staff and students.
"If you look at what all of the medical community is saying, whether it's the board of health or the chief medical officer, it's vaccination. We need to get as many people vaccinated as possible to stop the spread, it won't eliminate it, but it will certainly reduce the spread of COVID and that's what we're trying to advocate for."
City councillors endorsed the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit's position at their regular meeting this week, which recommended the province name COVID-19 a "designated disease" which would require students to be immunized against it before attending school.
- with files from AM800's The Morning Drive