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LETTER: Vaccinated teachers protect students and staff

3 min read

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Vaccinated teachers protect students and staff

The editorial board of the Observer-Reporter deserves kudos for its strong stand in this weekend’s editorial, “It should be mandated for teachers to be vaccinated.” Requiring teachers to be vaccinated before returning to work is the most obvious and effective measure that our public schools (as well as private and parochial schools) could take in order to protect students and staff going into the fall semester. K-12 schools should also mandate masks for the same reason.

The debate that has been raging for the last year, and one that has been ramping up recently due to the delta variant surge, has been whether to mandate such measures or to make them optional for all involved. The concept of leaving it up to individuals is, and has been, absurd.

If a school district mandates vaccinations and masks, then it pursues a strategy designed to protect the health and safety of students, staff and those who come into contact with them.

If a school district makes vaccinations and masks optional, then it does not pursue a strategy designed to keep people safe. Rather, it pursues a political strategy aimed at keeping a certain group of people from complaining. What makes this situation worse is that even though the anti-vax and anti-mask crowds are loud, they are a small minority that should not get its way simply because those entrusted with protecting public health do not have the fortitude to stand up and do the right thing in the face of public outcry.

Also, a personal option strategy where everyone can simply do as they like is logically and logistically indistinguishable from having no strategy at all.

As a member of the board of directors at both Canon-McMillan and the Intermediate Unit 1, I confess that the scenario that keeps me up at night is that an “optional plan” will allow unvaccinated and unmasked teachers to risk the health of students who are not vaccinated or who are not eligible to be vaccinated because of their age.

When presented with the dilemma of choosing between health and safety on one side, and personal freedom on the other, the argument has been that we have to respect personal freedom, even if that means unnecessarily endangering the health and safety of students and staff. As elected officials who are bound to protect those under our charge, we simply cannot follow a strategy where everyone can do whatever they want regardless of the risk to others. The freedom to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.

It is time that we put the health and safety of our children and employees first.

Joseph M. Zupancic

Canonsburg

Zupancic is a Canon-McMillan School District director, and a director for Intermediate Unit 1.

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