8 thoughts on “Board of Ed Debates COVID-19 Mitigation Strategies at Emotionally Charged Meeting

  1. I find it appalling that under these proposals “the schools also could welcome in all volunteers regardless of their vaccination status”, when teachers must (and should) be vaccinated.
    I also find this quote from BOE member Naughton to be irresponsible: “I think at this point, everybody that I know that got COVID was vaccinated—whatever, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “It’s just a thing. We’re going to get it and move on.” Covid is not just a “thing”, and there are those who, if they were to get it, will not be able to “move on”.
    Finally, for BOE member Hogan to grandstand that there were multiple teachers who were fired due to refusing vaccination, when it turns out it was one person who mutually agreed with the district to resign, shows a disturbing failure to do his research before he opines.

  2. Massachusetts has an interesting policy of allowing schools with 80% vaccination rates the ability to determine mask mandates locally (this requires local and state coordination with the health / education departments etc.).
    This concept should be pursued in CT – for example we could strengthen this a bit and say the school district needs to be at 80% as well as each individual school that would be eligible for such a waiver. The definition of vaccinated should also include a booster dose to reflect the different protection provided between a standard 2 course vs 3 course https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm as well as those under 12 only able to get the 2 shot dose. An 80% minimum leaves plenty of room for those not wanting to or who can not get vaccinated. The data is also very easy and transparent to calculate.
    For New Canaan despite our high vax levels we would not yet be eligible but perhaps from mid Feb we would be. As of last week our vax rate for 5-11 years olds was 58.8% and for 12-17 47.4% with the booster. Ironically this same data indicates that folks over 65 years who are most at risk for Covid are only boosted at the 72% level i.e. we all have work to do on this.

  3. Actually New Canaan Schools will not hire any new teacher unless they are vaccinated. No religious exemptions I was told when I personally inquired. That’s a district decision. So I’m glad that board member Hogan brought that up.

      • Hi Mike. Well if the district is short teachers and can’t find subs, one of the things that they can do is get rid of the vaccine mandates or accept religious exemptions for new hires. Many districts in CT do. And what is false about Hogans comment…he said he didn’t know how many teachers were let go for that. Seems ok to ask. Anyway have a great night,

        • No he didn’t. He said he didn’t know how many teachers were fired for being unvaccinated and that the district should consider hiring them back, when in fact no such firings took place.

          It’s more than OK to post opinions here, Mary Anne. However, I will call you and others out for trying to distort facts or quotes in our coverage, as you appear to be doing here. Not going to let misinformation go unchecked, including in comments threads. I think we’re all seeing enough of that.

          Please keep it in mind in the future. These threads are not a forum for political shills or point-scoring, even if some of the public meetings we cover are devolving into that.

          At some point, every elected or appointed official on a board or commission in New Canaan will assert something untrue, it’s an occupational hazard (there’s a couple of people at Town Hall who seem to do it as often as they speak). It’s not done out of malice here, and I don’t think it has to speak to this Board of Ed member’s contributions, present or future. I also think that your fanciful retelling is not helping your own cause.

          Here’s a bookmark to the section of the meeting we’re talking about, I’ll also embed the video in the top of the article.

          Good night.

  4. It’s Fine to question our elective officials.

    As far as accusing Me of spreading misinformation. Really. If your employer and you decide you are going to resign because you don’t want to maybe get a vaccine for example, (which btw wasn’t a requirement when you were hired), that’s getting fired. I don’t know exactly what happened here. In New York City, teachers were told they cannot enter the school building where they worked in some cases for 20 years unless they had the vaccine. They were told that if they resigned they could keep their medical benefits and collect their sick days. If they did not resign, they were put on leave without pay. So some of these teachers resigned. You can say that that’s not getting fired. But it is.

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