The Rocky View School (RVS) Board of Trustees is adding their voices to those advocating for teachers and other staff at schools in Alberta to be prioritized in the province's vaccine rollout.

At their meeting on Thursday, the board passed a motion to write a letter to the province asking for priority to be given to school staff in Alberta's vaccine efforts.

Rocky View joins the four largest school boards, and others in the province, in asking for school staff to receive priority.  The Calgary Board of Education (CBE), Calgary Catholic School District, Edmonton Public Schools and Edmonton Catholic Schools wrote to Health Minister Tyler Shandro asking him to do that on January 22nd.

CBE Board Chair Marilyn Dennis said vaccinating all school staff would limit the disruption to student learning.  All four divisions have moved to temporary online learning.  

Jason Schilling, President of the Alberta Teachers' Association has also been vocal in calling on the province to make vaccines for teachers happen.  Schilling said, "Teachers (are) working with the largest population of Albertans who will not be vaccinated."

In her COVID-19 update on Thursday, Dr. Deena Hinshaw said that there are now 612 schools with active alerts or outbreaks of COVID-19.  That total represents 25 percent of schools in the province.  3,502 cases have been linked to those schools since January 11th.  

At the same time during the April 22nd meeting, the RVS board also voted to write to Health Minister Shandro asking him for increased accountability, assurance and transparency in recent decisions and the effect they're having on student mental health and well-being. 

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