LAKELAND - The vast majority of Portage Portage students and staff at campus locations across the Lakeland are fully vaccinated, says Portage President Nancy Broadbent.
But a mandated double-vaccination policy that had a November 30 deadline is not being enforced, and rapid testing allowances will continue.
The mandate, announced in early October, called for every student, staff member and visitor to any college location to be fully-vaccinated by November 30. The announcement didn't include any potential consequences for students or staff who failed to vaccinate, but the message was clear.
Despite some concerns and anticipated stresses — and the walk-back of the mandate — Broadbent said the response over the last month has been favourable.
"There was lots of build up ... and November 30 passed with not a lot of problems," Broadbent told the POST last week, adding that more people connected to the college are now vaccinated against the coronavirus. "Most people got their vaccinations and there are very few rapid testing ... so very, very little impact."
Negative results from a rapid test will continue to allow access into at all Portage locations, said Broadbent, with the college paying for the tests until early in the new year. College officials are also planning to make more test kits available at all campus locations in the coming days and weeks. The decision to continue with the rapid tests was made just last week, after college officials learned of the relatively low number of un-vaccinated people.
"We have identified that the college will fund the rapid testing to the end of the semester, and continue to allow rapid testing into the new year, but at the people's expense," said Broadbent, again emphasizing that only "handfuls" of people associated with Portage remain un-vaccinated — and that some of those people actually did get vaccinated, but didn't get their needles in time to meet the November 30 deadline. "Given these small numbers, I think we are going to do what we can to minimize the work that people have to do for these rapid tests ... We couldn't have committed to that if we thought there would be hundreds of people, but there's not."
By the end of last week, days after the initial deadline date, Broadbent said only five people had submitted rapid test results at the Lac La Biche campus. At other campus locations, the number was even less. "Across all the other campuses, it's not even that many," she said.
Restrictions are on-site only
Only students and staff coming into campus locations fall under the college's vaccine and rapid test plan. Where necessary, accommodations have been made to have staff work from home, Broadbent said, and students completing online-only courses aren't included.
Admitting that some people — without identifying students, staff or peripheral links — had left the college over the vaccine issue, Broadbent again said those figures are very, very low.
"We hate to lose any students, but it has been very small," she said, adding that some of those losses have come from students utilizing on-campus housing. "It has had a very minor impact on housing, as they can't live on campus without it. We have lost a few, but again, we are in the handful of numbers."
Education is paramount
While the issue of vaccine mandates has been challenging, Broadbent says Portage officials have not lost sight of their main role of providing quality education in a quality learning environment.
"We continue to be small and close to the community, and we don't want students not to finish their studies for any reason — we are trying to be as adaptable as we can be," she said, admitting that the issue has been challenging on many fronts, but the focus has to remain on education. "We are going by what experts in the field are saying. There is so much emotion around what the truth is on this stuff, and we don't want to wade into that."
As the phase-in period of the new plans roll out, college staff will be stationed at main door campus entrances, scanning QR-coded proofs of vaccination and checking rapid test results. Portage also has an online app allowing students and staff to enter their negative rapid test results virtually.
Community access
Going forward, any community member coming to a Portage College location, for an event, work, study or visit will have to provide proof of vaccination or a negative rapid test result from within a 72 hour period.
Broadbent said other smaller post-secondary facilities in the province have also walked-back the mandatory vaccination policies in recent weeks. However, nine post secondary facilities in Alberta, including the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, NAIT, SAIT and Mount Royal, are sticking with their vaccine-only mandate for all students and staff.
Broadbent said community partners and stakeholders have been informed about the new changes at the Portage locations across the Lakeland.
