And parents, teachers, and students are hoping things will be a little easier when schools are officially opened for hybrid learning. But another concern for the ministry – and the schools – are teachers who either cannot or will not get vaccinated. It's only about 8% of teachers, but for parents, it's a bit scary to send their child away from the safety of their home. But the minister assured them today that those unvaxxed teachers will still need to present a negative COVID test every two weeks to be allowed inside the classroom.
Hon. Francis Fonseca - Minister of Education
"The policy remains in place as I discussed with the union as well, as you said, 92% of our teachers are vaccinates so that's the good news, that's tremendous, that 8%, we seemed to have hit a wall with that 8% for various reasons, some of them have legitimate reasons, others have simply refused to take the vaccine but the policy remains the same that they will have to produce a negative test every two weeks to continue teaching and going back into the classroom but we encourage them to get vaccinated as we have been saying from day one, getting vaccinated is not just about yourself, it's about protecting your fellow teachers, protecting your students, protecting the staff at your school, the administration, and also of course protecting your family at home, the vaccine won't prevent you from getting COVID but it certainly will help you to fight COVID and to deal with the effects of COVID so along with the union we are very happy for the support of the teachers union on this important issue, along with them we have been sending a very strong message to our teachers of how important it is to get vaccinated."
