MA Teachers Union Presses Vaccine Mandate For All Staff, Students

MASSACHUSETTS — The Massachusetts Teachers Association is pressing Gov. Charlie Baker to get strict on requiring coronavirus vaccinations for all school staff and eligible students.

The MTA Board of Directors voted overwhelmingly this week to support a vaccine requirement for all teachers, school staff and students ages 12 and older in public schools and colleges across the state. The MTA board also voted 46-4 to support requiring weekly testing for all students not yet eligible for the vaccine, or for those students, teachers and staff with a medical exception.

“We must do everything in our power to protect students, educators, public health and all of our communities — including communities of color, which, because of structural racism, have been hit the hardest by the coronavirus pandemic," MTA President Merrie Najimy said in a statement. "By taking this step, the MTA continues to play a lead role in advocating for what we all want the most: to be in our classrooms with our students in a safe environment.

"Requiring vaccines for educators and eligible students is a reasonable measure to take for the common good."

Boston Acting Mayor Kim Janney said last week that all 18,000 of that city's municipal employees — including teachers — will need to be fully vaccinated or undergo weekly testing as of Oct. 18. Salem is working with its unions for a similar mandate that includes a twice-weekly testing regimen for unvaccinated teachers and other municipal employees.

The Salem School Committee this week also approved a vaccine mandate for students in "high-respiration" extracurricular activities, including sports, band and drama, that requires them to either be vaccinated or remain masked both indoors and outdoors while participating in those activities, as well as obtain written documentation that they have consulted with a health care professional about the vaccine.

But state guidance on school masks and vaccines to this point is more about recommendations than mandates.

Baker said earlier this week there is unlikely to be any additional statewide mask restrictions — leaving it up to local school districts — beyond the strong recommendation that unvaccinated students and staff wear masks indoors, while vaccinated students in seventh grade and older, as well as vaccinated staff, have the option whether to wear them or not.

While Baker has repeatedly touted the state's high vaccination rates and promoted near-universal vaccinations as "the pathway out of this pandemic" he has thus far not backed statewide requirements beyond for those who work in long-term care facilities.

"It's as if Governor Baker, Education Secretary James Peyser and Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley have learned nothing over the past year and a half," Najimy said. "MTA members have spent that time calling for well-informed and researched approaches to make in-person learning as safe as possible.

"Now more than ever, the governor has an obligation to work with educators and other community members to develop responsible plans to avoid the chaos that did so much damage to all of us last year."

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(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)