Independent Flex Day, 8/12:
- Board of Trustees Committee Meetings.
The BOT is holding committee meetings. Schedules and zoom links are on the BOT meetings page. Agendas are posted in BoardDocs. - The Performing Arts and Education (PAEC) Building.
The BOT facilities committee, in their 3:30 meeting, will be discussing the PAEC project. (It’s called “Theater Project” on the agenda, item 4C.) We’ve heard rumors that there’s some pressure to shrink the project. This would be a good chance to tell the BOT to move forward as planned and not downsize this important plan.
. - A CCSF Vaccine Mandate?
The “Budget, Audit Committee, and Meeting of the Whole” meeting, from 9:00-11:00 am will consider a resolution about vaccine mandates. The resolution would direct the administration to implement a vaccine mandate for everyone on our campuses by October 1st. It will be agenda item 3.A.
Faculty are indicating support for vaccine mandates. Many of you have written to AFT in support, and discussed this issue with precinct reps and with our Return to Campus team. As of August 9th, 224 faculty have filled out our COVID impacts survey. 84% of respondents said that CCSF should require COVID vaccines for faculty. 78% said that CCSF should require COVID vaccines for students. AFT National has weighed in as well, supporting vaccine mandates for teachers across the country.
At the same time, we recognize that vaccines are not a cure-all. We appreciate that the BOT resolution includes robust recommendations for social distancing, masking, and other mitigation strategies. However, the district needs to implement a plan for enforcing these recommendations.
This resolution doesn’t address how a mandate would be implemented. We have to make sure that faculty are not required to be the vaccination cops. We will not interrupt our classes to check the vaccination status of our students, nor determine medical exemptions.
The resolution also says nothing about making vaccines and testing more available. In order to improve access for our students and other community members, we urge the BOT and administration to work on providing these services on campus or nearby.
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