News Photo by Barbara Woodham Leslie Reynolds, left, administrative assistant and secretary to the Alpena Public Schools Board of Education, and Susan Wooden, interim executive director of human resources and labor relations for the district, sit in the boardroom after a board Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday.

ALPENA–The Alpena school board’s Policy Committee on Tuesday recommended the full board empower Superintendent Dave Rabbideau to mandate school district employees receive the coronavirus vaccine, though Rabbideau said he would not mandate vaccinations.

“I would not mandate vaccines,” he said Wednesday. “We would go with the second option of testing and masks.”

APS would only implement the mandated testing and masks if courts uphold President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for large companies. Currently, the administration’s mandates have been stalled by courts.

The recommendation for a new policy at APS comes after the U.S. Department of Labor issued a new emergency temporary standard requiring employers covered by the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to enforce a mandatory COVID-19 vaccination policy unless they adopt a policy requiring employees to choose either vaccination or regular COVID-19 testing and wearing a facemask at work.

APS is not covered by the federal OHSA, but is covered by the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

In an email sent to APS employees, Susan Wooden, the district’s interim executive director of human resources and labor relations, said that, “based on current information, MIOSHA may adopt the (mandates) put in place by the federal government for employers with 100 or more employees. APS has just over 500 employees.

“It is anticipated that, by January 4, 2022, employers must require employees to produce a verified negative test on at least a weekly basis and wear face masks or be fully vaccinated and wear face masks,” Wooden said in the email. “District employees already wear face masks.”

APS’s current policy encourages all employees to receive a COVID-19 vaccination to protect themselves and other employees. The current policy also authorizes the superintendent to issue necessary administrative guidelines with board input.

The new policy will give Rabbideau the authority to issue mandates as he determines necessary under state and federal law.

According to the new policy, The superintendent shall keep the board informed of any actions taken under the policy as soon as possible and that the policy will cease to be in effect upon the expiration of the federal mandate, as long as the expiration date is consistent with other federal and state law and any applicable executive orders or rules as determined by the superintendent and approved by the school board.

Wooden said a series of administrative guidelines currently being drafted will eventually accompany the policy. The district will release those guidelines soon.

Support for the policy change was not unanimous.

“I can’t support the policy as drafted,” Trustee Eric Lawson said at the Policy Committee meeting on Tuesday.

Wooden said the district had to have a policy in place in case current court orders pausing the administration’s mandates get lifted.

Lawson asked what the district’s legal team advised.

“That we need to have a policy in place,” Wooden replied.

The committee decided that the new policy should be in place sooner rather than later and will use a process allowed by board bylaws to expedite the adoption of the policy with a first and only reading at the regular Alpena school board meeting on Monday. Policy changes usually require two public readings.

Rabbideau said APS does not track how many APS employees are fully vaccinated.

As of Dec. 2, more than 1,300 Northeast Michiganders were actively infected with COVID-19, according to a News analysis of local health department data.

More than 8,300 Northeast Michiganders have been infected since the pandemic’s start in spring 2020, and 200 have died.