Virginia isn’t requiring teacher vaccines, but the federal government could do it soon

President Joe Biden this week released a plan that could pave the way for an emergency rule requiring K-12 educators to get COVID-19 vaccines in states like Virginia which have not made them mandatory.

So far, Gov. Ralph Northam has left the decision to individual school districts, some of which have recently resisted public health guidelines such as requiring masks in schools.

None in Hampton Roads have approved vaccine mandates for teachers and staff. By contrast, school districts in Richmond and other cities north of Tidewater have required vaccinations for teachers.

Outside Virginia, a handful of states including California, New Mexico, New York, New Jersey along with Washington, D.C. have decided to require teachers to get the vaccine or undergo weekly testing, according to the news site EducationWeek. At least nine others have prohibited school districts from requiring the vaccine, the site reported.

When asked Thursday about Biden’s plan and whether Northam intends to issue a mandate for educators and other school staff, spokeswoman Alena Yarmosky wrote in an email to The Virginian-Pilot that educators are employed by locally-elected school boards. Northam announced a vaccine requirement for state employees in August while encouraging other government officials, including local school board members, to do the same thing.

“Governor Northam absolutely supports the President’s approach, which incorporates a lot of what we’re already doing in Virginia,” she wrote in the email on Sept. 9. Northam, Yarmosky wrote, believes vaccinations are “essential to keeping Virginia’s children safely in schools” and he has urged businesses to follow the state’s lead in requiring them for employees.

In August, Northam announced that most state employees will be required to get the vaccine, citing upticks in coronavirus cases, especially among the unvaccinated.

“We can call vaccination a personal choice, but our choices affect other people,” Northam said at the time. “Do it to save yourself. I do not want any Virginian to die, especially when it could have been prevented.”

A growing number of governments, universities and other institutions, including here in Hampton Roads, have decided to require vaccines.

Biden’s plan applies to public employees, including K-12 educators, in the 26 states and two territories that have state-level OSHA-approved workplace safety plans, according to EducationWeek. Virginia is among those states.

The rule will be released in the coming weeks.

A Chesapeake Public Schools spokesman said the district hasn’t begun considering Biden’s plan, and a Hampton City Schools spokeswoman wrote to The Pilot that the district is “awaiting specific details regarding the President’s announcement (from Sept. 9).”

“If the vaccine does become a state or federal mandate, we will certainly follow the requirements of any executive order in this regard,” she wrote.

There is no mention of any such mandate on the upcoming Sept. 14 Virginia Beach school board meeting. A schools spokeswoman said the administration has not asked the board to vote on any mandate for staff but they are monitoring school transmission rates and quarantine statuses and “could bring it up as a possibility in the future.” In Newport News, about 80% of staff received the Moderna vaccine as of this spring after the district ran vaccine clinics.

“(The district) will continue to encourage staff and students to get vaccinated. At this time, our leadership team does not have a recommendation either way,” a school spokeswoman wrote in an email.

But at least two union representatives locally in Hampton Roads said a vaccine mandate should come from Northam so local school boards won’t have to face the decision themselves.

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“I think it’s his job. The state is responsible for public education ever since Thomas Jefferson,” said Thomas Calhoun, president of the Norfolk Federation of Teachers, who said he’s in favor of vaccine requirements for teachers.

Calhoun emphasized that public health experts say children are best protected by schools following mitigation efforts like wearing a mask and, if possible, vaccinating everyone around them.

“Children cannot make decisions themselves,” Calhoun said. “Somebody has to make decisions for them.”

Last month, the National Education Association issued a statement in support of requiring all educators to get the vaccine or undergo regular testing.

“As we enter a new school year amidst a rapidly spreading Delta variant and lagging public vaccination rates, it is clear that the vaccination of those eligible is one of the most effective ways to keep schools safe, and they must be coupled with other proven mitigation strategies,” the association’s president Becky Pringle wrote in the statement.

Staff writer Sara Gregory contributed to this report

Gordon Rago, 757-446-2601, gordon.rago@pilotonline.com