A Miami private school received a letter from the Florida Department Of Education on Thursday over the institution’s controversial policy for their students who have received the COVID-19 vaccine. According to the policy, students who have been vaccinated will not be allowed to go to school for the next 30 days.
False Claims Over ‘Interacting With People Who Have Been Vaccinated’
According to ABC 17, Centner Academy, a Miami private school, has an existing policy requesting parents to have their children stay at home for 30 days after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, based on a letter that the academy sent to parents. The letter, obtained by CNN associate WSVN, includes false and refuted claims regarding the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Earlier, the academy had also made unconfirmed claims about the adverse reaction that the unvaccinated people could have by “interacting with people who have been vaccinated.”
These claims are not identified nor supported by the Centers for Disease Control, Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health or World Health Organization. In fact, all four agencies, supported by wide and vast research, confirmed that getting the COVID-19 vaccine would be the best defense against the spread of the COVID-19 virus along with severe illness and death related to the virus.
Department Of Education’s Letter To Centner Academy
The Department of Education stated in the letter sent to the academy that it has recently received news that the school may use attendance policies, requiring parents of students who have recently received the COVID-19 vaccine to be quarantined for “unreasonable, unnecessary, and unduly burdensome amount of time before returning for in-person instruction,” according to ABC 17.
According to Senior Chancellor Jacob Oliva, even if the school is still under investigation, Centner Academy has multiple obligations under the law, both attendance and health, safety, and welfare mandates.
Olivia also urged the school officials to assess their policies and adapt them to the state’s law. She also added that failure for the school to fit their policies with Florida’s requirements would jeopardize the school’s scholarship eligibility at present and in the future.
The academy is given until Friday to prove that their policies are in line with relevant laws, Olivia was quoted as saying by ABC 17.
The letter also stated, “Should our investigation reveal that your schools’ policies fail to comport with these lawful rights and obligations, understand that the action that follows — up to and including revocation of your schools’ scholarship eligibility and funding — will be both swift and decisive.”
Academy’s Letter To Parents Contains False Claims Over Vaccine Shedding
In the letter sent to parents, a part of it stated that if a parent is thinking about getting his/her child vaccinated against COVID-19, “we ask that you hold off until the Summer when there will be time for the potential transmission or shedding onto others to decrease.”
The letter also included that due to the possible impact of the vaccinated to other students and the school community, students who received their vaccine will have to stay at home for 30 days “post-vaccination for each dose and booster they receive and may return to school after 30 days as long as the student is healthy and symptom-free,” WSVN reported.
David Centner, the academy’s co-founder previously said in a statement that the school’s policy is “a prudent precautionary measure.”
“To be clear, the school leadership does not believe that one who is vaccinated can infect another person with COVID. … Further, the school is not opining on whether a vaccinated person can negatively impact others,” Centner said.
“However, due to voluminous anecdotal reports in circulation on this latter topic, we must err on the side of caution when making decisions that may impact the health of the school community. Until there are definitive and scientifically proven studies that refute these reports, we need to do what is best for our students and staff.”
CDC Debunked Vaccine Shedding
Located on CDC’s page for Vaccine Myths and Facts, the agency stated that vaccine shedding, a term used to describe the release of any vaccine components in or outside of the body, can only happen when a vaccine has a weakened version of the virus, and COVID-19 vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. contain no live virus.
