Board members of the Eatonville School District have decided they will not fire staff members who fail to provide proof they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, defying Gov. Jay Inslee’s mandate and risking public funding.
Inslee in August issues proclamations requiring all K-12 staff and all state employees be fully vaccinated by Oct. 18 or risk termination. Nearly 1,900 state employees across a variety of agencies and departments were either fired, resigned or retired rather than comply with the vaccine mandate.
“We won’t gamble with the health of our children, our educators and school staff, nor the health of the communities they serve,” Inslee said at the time he made the announcement.
The school board at its Oct. 20 meeting introduced a measure to fire all staff members who were not vaccinated, but the resolution then failed on a voice vote.
“I lay this squarely at the feet of the state and Jay Inslee and I’m profoundly unhappy about this,” Board Chair Jeff Lucas said during the meeting. “Yet again, we’re just put in a lousy place with no local input and just stuck taking it.”
The district, south of Seattle, did not indicate how many staff members are not vaccinated.
The decision puts the district of about 1,800 students at risk of losing state funding.
Chris Reykdal, Washington’s state superintendent of public instruction, filed an emergency rule in late August detailing penalties for school districts that do not comply with mask or vaccine mandates.
“These safety measures work, and they are not at the discretion of local school boards or superintendents,” Reykdal said at the time.
Districts found to be in violation will be sent a notice giving them 15 days to comply. If they fail to meet that deadline, the state will send a second warning with five days to comply.
Reykdal said the initial 15-day grace period is because school boards typically only meet twice a month.
Continued noncompliance would mean a loss of funding equal to the number of days in violation divided by 180, which is the required number of instructional days in an academic year.
Eatonville’s middle school had to temporarily return to holding classes online in late September after more than 10% of the building’s 400 students were forced into quarantine due to a coronavirus outbreak.
The Washington State Health Department defines an outbreak as two or more positive COVID-19 tests among people who experience the onset of symptoms within 14 days and plausible epidemiological evidence of transmission in a shared location.
