Calgary Board of Education reports 95% of staff vaccinated

The Calgary Board of Education says 99 per cent of its staff have already declared their immunization statuses, and it hopes to hit 100 per cent by the end of the day.

Robert Armstrong, superintendent of human resources, says about95 per cent of staff say they are fully vaccinated against COVID-19,leaving roughly 300 staff memberswho say they are not fully immunized.

"Fewer than 10 that are teachers and then there's about 35 substitute teachers in that group," he said.

In order to keep working, Armstrong said, unvaccinated staff will be required to undergo rapid testing in the new year.

"The employees will have to get a test within 72 hours of each of their shifts," he said.

"That needs to be done by an accredited pharmacy or lab. They would then upload their test results into our system, and at that point, we would know that they're able to come to work."

He says staff unwilling to declare their statusor participate in rapid testing will be put on leave without pay before Jan.4.

"Given the sort of the response that we've had to this, we don't anticipate any disruptions to schools or workplaces come January 4th right now," he said.

"There's only three full-time teachers acrossour entire system that we believe aren't intending tocomply with the policy. So we think it'll be a very, very minimal impact, if anything, on the system come January."