A discussion was held at Monday night’s Greene County School Board meeting about a federal COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recently released information about companies and organizations with at least 100 employees are required to be vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 4, 2022. If an employee chooses not to be vaccinated, they are required to wear a mask and be subject to weekly testing. Superintendent Tim Christensen explains why school districts in Iowa are not exempt from this mandate.

“My understanding, Iowa is one of 22 states that has approved OSHA standards (for) private and public sector. So school districts, we have to follow mandates from OSHA. There’s still court cases out about that, that we’re kind of playing the ‘wait and see’ approach.”

Christensen points out there are medical and religious exemptions that are approved by the district’s administration and kept on file in case OSHA were to audit the district. He adds that January 4th is when the testing would begin for any employee not vaccinated. Christensen says this mandate is for the most part out of their control.

“This is higher up than us. But ultimately some decisions the Board may have to make that are going to be challenging decisions and people may or may not like them. But again our hands are tied and we’ve got to do the best that we can with the cards that are dealt to us.”

Greene County Attorney Thomas Laehn believes that a court decision by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals installed a stay, which delays the implementation of the mandate, which impacts the entire country. Christensen says, depending on what happens in the court system, the School Board may have to call a special meeting prior to the December 6th deadline to decide on a policy.