Private schools to start vaccinating their staff on-site

One of Victoria’s biggest private schools will begin vaccinating its staff on campus this week, with several others looking to follow suit after the union for non-government school staff said an unvaccinated workforce “poses an unacceptable risk to the community”.

Wesley College will begin a voluntary on-site vaccination program for 700 staff across three campuses on Friday.

Wesley College will start vaccinating its 700 staff on Friday.Credit:Michael Clayton-Jones

The school was approached with free leftover COVID-19 vaccinations by an unnamed vaccination provider that administers the school’s annual flu shots and owns and operates GP clinics. There is no cost to the school.

The high-fee co-educational school said it was inoculating staff because the “best way out of this pandemic is vaccination” and staff had embraced the initiative.

It comes as a teacher at Al-Taqwa College in Truganina was confirmed as testing positive to COVID-19 on Wednesday afternoon. The large non-government school in Melbourne’s west was connected with one of the city’s worst clusters last year.

A Wesley spokeswoman said the school was “pleased to offer all staff the opportunity to have a COVID vaccination on-site as part of our commitment to the wellbeing and safety of our community”.

The school said it was open to vaccinating students when they became eligible for the jab.

Under current rules, staff at Victoria’s 107 specialist schools and educators of children with a disability qualify for a fast-tracked vaccine. Education unions have pushed for all teachers and school staff to be prioritised for vaccination, but Premier Daniel Andrews has shot down the idea citing a lack of supply.

Wesley said that in line with government advice, staff aged 40 to 59 and pregnant women would get the Pfizer vaccine, staff aged 60 years and above would get the AstraZeneca vaccine, and staff aged 18 to 39 could get AstraZeneca following a consultation with their GP.

Other non-government schools in Melbourne are also looking at potentially providing on-site vaccination for staff.

Bacchus Marsh Grammar and Trinity Grammar in Kew were both directly affected by Victoria’s recent COVID-19 outbreak, with many staff and students infected.

Bacchus Marsh principal Andrew Neal said he hoped the school would be in a position to begin vaccinating staff on-site within the next two weeks, after 21 members of the school community were infected with the Delta variant.

Mr Neal said most of those who were infected were unvaccinated staff and students.

Staff and students routinely receive flu shots and vaccines for other contagious diseases such as measles, and Mr Neal said it made sense for schools to act as vaccine hubs.

Alliance Health will administer the vaccine service.

Stuart Davis, principal of St Leonard’s College, said he had encouraged his school community to get vaccinated and would like to provide the vaccine at the Brighton school.

“We support the provision of vaccines to our teachers and are happy to support this by hosting if required,” he said.

Meg Hansen, principal of Westbourne Grammar in Truganina, said her school would host a vaccine hub for staff if it could.

“I have left a message with Sarah Connolly our state MP, and have started some research with how to go about doing this and determining what other schools might be interested in doing within our district,” Ms Hansen said.

Under Department of Education guidelines, school staff are encouraged to make vaccination appointments at times that minimise disruption to students, although “flexible work arrangements or existing leave entitlements can be accessed with the approval of the principal to help employees get the vaccine”.

Tina King, of the Australian Principals Federation, said on-site vaccination of school staff would be ideal for all schools.

She said staff were alarmed by the COVID-19 infections of young people in Queensland and NSW and worried about the prospect of returning to remote learning. “Anything that could expedite the process [of vaccination] is welcome,” Ms King said.

Paediatrician Fiona Russell recently warned that Victoria cannot avoid further school closures â€" which affect the state’s more than 1 million students, their carers, and about 138,000 school staff â€" unless people got vaccinated.

“In our state, we’ve had five lockdowns and schools have been closed for 27 weeks in the last 18 months,” she said. “Adults not getting vaccinated harms our children.”

Yarra Valley Grammar principal Dr Mark Merry has told families the school “supports the rollout of vaccinations as the only sure way of avoiding future lockdowns”.

Mount Scopus Memorial College principal Rabbi James Kennard said the Burwood school was providing paid leave for staff to get vaccinated.

Large independent schools Haileybury College and Carey Baptist Grammar said while they hadn’t encouraged families to get the jab, staff were able to get time off to get vaccinated.

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Madeleine Heffernan is an education reporter for The Age.

Adam Carey is Education Editor. He joined The Age in 2007 and has previously covered state politics, transport, general news, the arts and food.

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