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Date: 11/16/2021
BELCHERTOWN – After the Belchertown School Committee voted to approve the first reading of a policy that would require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 or provide a negative test, the committee retracted that policy in favor of a new policy that would require all students to provide a negative test, regardless of vaccination status, to participate in extracurriculars.
This action took place at the committee’s Nov. 9 meeting.
Under the new policy, all students will be required to submit a negative COVID-19 test before participating in many extracurricular activities, including sports, field trips and clubs. Not included in this policy are students participating in the afterschool program to help with learning loss due to remote learning during COVID-19 or field trips that take place during the school day. The committee said they will address events such as prom and graduation in the spring.
Committee Vice Chair Ruby Bansal started the discussion by reading a lengthy statement about her thoughts on the mandate.
“This should be a conversation about whether or not we should require vaccines and whether or not that is the role of the School Committee. I 100 percent believe in vaccines, I agree that vaccination is the way out of this pandemic, however I do not think it is our role to mandate the vaccine for our students,” she said. “I believe this is the role of the Department of Public Health and I hope once vaccines are fully Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved for all ages they will act.”
Instead of requiring vaccinations, Bansal said testing for everyone was safer.
“There are a number of districts across the state that are mandating testing for students to participate in extracurriculars and sports, vaccinated and unvaccinated. I believe this is the safest option for our students and I believe it is in our purview,” she said.
At the end of her statement, Bansal made a motion to require mandatory testing for both vaccinated and unvaccinated students to participate in extracurricular activities and sports.
Committee member Amy LaMothe said the new policy was the intent of her amendment from the previous meeting.
“This was the original intent of what I tried to amend the policy to, which was to have all students participate in the testing and it seemed like we were not able to include vaccinated students, but I fully support that because that was my original intention,” she said.
Committee member Diane Brown said the new policy showed that vaccines do not necessarily stop the spread of COVID-19.
“It expands where we started last week. This whole thing is a process and we have listened to you. The goal for all of us is to have the schools open and to have all the things that make a school experience what it needs to be and that includes all the after-school things. It makes it clear that even if you are vaccinated you should still get tested because you can pass it,” she said.
Board member Michael Knapp said he was unsure about requiring testing for vaccinated students.
“The policy right now is you are vaxxed or you get tested. I can live with that, I understand the compromises and I can get on board with that, but the idea that we should test everybody who participates is a different kettle of fish and I do not understand what is motivating that,” he said.
He added it would make sense to exclude the vaccinated students.
“We can cut down the testing down by three quarters by excluding the vaccinated individuals, which is not unusual for us to do. For contact tracing, if you are vaccinated you are assumed to be fine, so they do not pull you out and so far, that has been fine,” Knapp said. “By testing every single student participating in extracurriculars, we are probably doing four times the work needed to be done.”
LaMothe added that the mandatory testing was the safest way to keep schools open.
“In this way you are also testing the vaccinated students who do have the potential of being asymptomatic carriers and to me that is also the safest way to keep all of our kids in school, by identifying those students in advance and preventing any kind of spread,” she said.
School Nurse Leader Phyllis DuComb said it would be possible to adjust the testing schedule to include students in extracurriculars.
“There will have to be some adjustments because there are approximately 80 to 90 students at the high school getting tested now, so with another 130 with the athletes plus the extracurricular then we double the amount of work,” she said. “I’m going to say we can do it, but we would need more team members to do it.”
With the testing requirement, Superintendent Brian Cameron said there would be a strict deadline to submit the test.
“If we go this route and somebody misses pool testing on Wednesday, we have to have strict guidelines that if you do not have that test in by Friday between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. you will not be able to participate. We will do the best we can, but we have to have a deadline,” he said.
The committee unanimously approved the first reading of the new policy and members of the public in attendance applauded the committee for the decision.
During the meeting, the committee also unanimously approved the second reading of a policy that would require vaccines or twice a week testing for all district staff.
The Belchertown School Committee will vote to approve the second reading of the policy during its Dec. 7 meeting and coverage of that meeting will appear in the Dec. 16 edition of The Reminder.