Central Regional Schools Urge Murphy To Avoid Vaccine Mandate

BERKELEY, NJ — The Central Regional School District's superintendent recently sent a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy urging him not to mandate COVID-19 vaccines for teachers and staff.

Since Oct. 18, all preK-12 school personnel have had to either get vaccinated against COVID-19 or undergo regular testing for COVID-19 at least once or twice a week.

At Central Regional, 120 teachers and staff in the district are not vaccinated against COVID-19 but are being tested on a weekly basis, according to Superintendent Triantafillos Parlapanides.

In a letter to Murphy, Parlapanides argued that a vaccine mandate could create additional staffing issues for the school district during the middle of the school year. His letter to the governor was sent on behalf of the board of education, students and parents.

“We reach out to you with our concerns should you mandate vaccinations for all public employees in the future without the option of weekly testing,” Parlapanides wrote. “Such a mandate will force teachers, support staff, and administrators that choose not to vaccinate for religious, medical, or personal reasons, to be forced to resign their positions.”

He continued, “Unlike hospitals or other companies that can delay surgeries, or produce less goods when understaffed, we cannot replace teachers, support staff, and administrators in mid-year. After all that our students and parents had to endure last school year due to shutdowns and closures, and the struggles and learning losses due to the failures of virtual learning, such a mandate will even further hurt our students academically, mentally, and socially.”

The request from Parlapanides comes as New Jersey schools are reporting a surge in COVID cases, according to data presented by state officials on Monday.

In November alone, Murphy said the rate of infection has nearly doubled for students throughout the month of November and increased roughly 2.5 times for staff per 1,000 people. Read More: COVID Infection Rate Nearly Doubles In NJ Schools Amid Spike

For the week ending on Dec. 5, schools reported 4,998 new student cases and 1,168 teacher cases. That equals to 4.56 student cases per 1,000 students and 5.79 staff cases per 1,000 staff members, according to the state dashboard.

Regulations continue to change on how to combat the coronavirus pandemic. New York's new statewide indoor mask mandates went into effect Monday after the new omicron variant emerged.

New Jersey has not followed suit, though during a Monday news conference Murphy said, "Every option is on the table at the moment," in regards to mandating indoor masks again. Read more: Will NJ's Indoor Mask Mandate Return? Here's What Murphy Says

With reporting by Alexis Tarrazi.