Back on October 1st, Richmond, Virginia public schools superintendent Jason Kamras followed President Joe Biden’s lead and announced a vaccine mandate for all teachers and staff in his district. Those failing to comply would have their pay withheld and could potentially face the loss of their jobs if they didn’t come into line with the policy. But that was then and this is now. The schools were already struggling to fill more than 100 vacancies, almost all of which were driven by the mandate. This week, on Monday night, the School Board was forced to approve 29 more resignations, so at the same meeting, they voted by a two-to-one margin to dial back Kamras’ mandate and allow those opposed to being vaccinated the options of submitting weekly negative COVID tests instead. (Fox News)

Richmond’s School Board has reversed course on a plan to discipline staff who didn’t comply with a coronavirus vaccine mandate after numerous teachers resigned over the measure, reports say.

On Monday night, the board voted 6-3 to prevent superintendent Jason Kamras from withholding pay or firing teachers who refused get the vaccine “if said teachers or staff agree to weekly COVID testing provided by RPS,” according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The newspaper reports that Kamras still stands by his decision to mandate the vaccine, saying “a mandate isn’t a mandate if there are no consequences” and that it increased the district’s overall vaccination rate to around 92%.

The school district will be paying for the weekly COVID testing for those who choose to go that route. Also, anyone who had their pay docked as a result of the mandate will be reimbursed that money. There was no end date specified for the compromise, so even if they manage to fill all of the vacancies, this policy looks as if it might be remaining in effect.

Now, was that really so difficult? Right from the beginning, it should have been obvious that there were going to be some number of teachers and workers in the schools who would opt to not be vaccinated. Instead of stomping his feet and declaring a “my way or the highway” approach, the Superintendent could have opened a conversation to seek other options and a weekly testing plan seems like it would have been the immediately obvious choice.

Granted, the School Board hasn’t been given a very good example to follow by either the federal government or many municipal governments around the nation. These policies are all over the map, with some groups, such as the military, having a vax-only policy with strict punishments for those who do not comply. The same goes for many police departments and some healthcare workers. But others, including many federal workers, are given weekly testing as a choice.

As I have asked here in the past, whatever happened to “following the science?” Either weekly testing is a safe approach or it isn’t. How can it be good enough for one group of employees but not for another? None of these people have secret, magical immunity spells that allow them to take a more casual approach. And when you’re tossing around these varying mandates in a haphazard fashion, it should have been obvious that people were being left without a clear indicator of the best policy to follow.

If Richmond’s school district can figure this out, so can everyone else. I’m convinced that the courts will probably continue to uphold vaccine mandates, at least for the time being. (But only until “the emergency is over,” whenever that’s supposed to happen.) We could be offering the same choice to police officers, healthcare workers, and everyone else as well. And if we had just done that from the beginning it wouldn’t have spiraled out of control into the massive political crapstorm we’re witnessing now.