Amid prolonged federal legal wrangling, Waseca Public Schools (WPS) is moving forward with a policy mandating its staff be vaccinated against COVID-19 or submit to weekly laboratory testing and masking.
Waseca School Board discussed Jan. 6 a district COVID-19 policy sufficient to satisfy the federal vaccine mandate which the district is required to put in place by Feb. 8, assuming it is not "stayed," or put on hold, at the federal level again. Because the mandate itself is still in a tenuous position — the Supreme Court began hearing oral arguments on it on Jan. 7 — the board is likely to offer more clarity on its policy at its regular Jan. 20 meeting. (File photo/southernminn.com)
Throughout his report on the legally mandated policy at the Jan. 6 organizational School Board meeting, Superintendent Eric Hudspith expressed discomfort with the situation, though he reminded the School Board it did not have a choice in the matter.
“We want to make sure that we follow the law … we don’t really have the option to just willfully decide not to,” Hudspith said. “I don’t know if this is the best thing for us, but we’re going to do the best we can for our staff and work through it.”
The mandate comes from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), a regulatory agency of the United States Department of Labor, which issued an emergency temporary standard (ETS) to all employers with 100 or more employees, a category under which WPS falls. While the mandate was originally issued Nov. 4, it was later temporarily “stayed” — or put on hold — later that month, after the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit struck down the order. The stay was later lifted by the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.
Whether the mandate will become stayed again or go into effect will depend upon the ruling of the United States Supreme Court, which began hearing oral arguments on Jan. 7. Hudspith predicted the court would put a stay on the mandate, which would lead the school not to go through with the policy.
Regardless, Hudspith said the district will be collecting vaccination status information from staff starting Jan. 7 as part of the implementation of its legally required policy. He added the information would be confidential, kept in a file separate from the district’s personnel file and which will be destroyed if and when the ETS goes away.
By Wednesday, Feb. 9, the district also has to have its COVID-19 testing system in place, since the mandate stipulates unvaccinated employees undergoing testing must be tested at a laboratory — personal rapid or antigen tests are not sufficient. Hudspith said he was unclear at the moment on who would be paying for the tests.
Because so much depends on the ruling to be made by the United States Supreme Court, a more robust, clearer update on the district’s COVID-19 policy will not be given until the Jan. 20 regular School Board meeting, by which time the status of the relevant federal legislation is hoped to have stabilized. After the Jan. 20 meeting, the School Board will be required to adopt an emergency policy based on law by Feb. 8.
“As much as we’re gonna lead through it positively and proactively, I think it’s also fair to honestly say this is something we’re being required to do,” Hudspith said. “It isn’t a School Board choice or a district choice. But we’ll move through it.”
