Suspended teacher’s desperate plea as vaccination mandate takes financial toll on young family

A primary school teacher has told how the ‘no jab, no job’ Covid mandate has created a financial burden for his young family and pushed him to the brink.

A primary school teacher has told how the “no jab, no job” vaccine mandate has created a financial burden for his young family and pushed him to the brink.

The special education teacher, who did not want to be named for fear of retribution, was suspended without pay from an Eagleby school five months ago because he was unvaccinated.

The father-of-three said he did not want to be vaccinated as he was healthy, had already had Covid and was waiting for wider testing of the vaccine.

He said his family’s woes were compounded when he received a letter last week extending his suspension by three months until September and classifying his non-vaccinated status as a “work performance issue”.

The letter included phone numbers for suspended teachers requiring counselling services.

The letter to the suspended teacher from the Education Department claiming the suspension was for not complying with “lawful instructions” from employers.

The family’s fate was further sealed this week when Police Commissioner Katarina Carroll told a Brisbane Supreme Court trial into the efficacy of the mandates that the strict rules should not be lifted.

Seventy police and health workers are challenging the mandates in the civil trial, which included the Human Rights Commission and Attorney-General but teachers are yet to launch their own case.

“Departments get together and conduct a really thorough risk assessment of their own department,” Commissioner Carroll said.

“ … We’ve had more deaths than ever and as of last week 1060. The evidence clearly shows from CHO, from Queensland Health and ATAGI (Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation), that the best way to deal with this is through vaccines and boosters.”

A primary school teacher has told how the “no jab, no job” vaccine mandate has created a financial burden for his young family and pushed him to the brink.

The suspended teacher has begged for his job back but said he would be forced to travel more than an hour each day to teach in New South Wales, where the restrictions were lifted for teachers in May.

To add to his anxiety, the suspended teacher said his school posted a “misleading” Facebook “farewell” which he believed indicated to parents that he had left the school without saying goodbye.

“How much longer will this go on?” he said.

“I have a family to support and the hypocrisy is astounding as I can go to the school as an unvaccinated parent and meet with my children’s teachers but I can’t stay and teach my own class.

“I have seen my own job advertised at least four times on Queensland Teacher’s Facebook social media.

“I have been unable to get Jobseeker payments for months because I was suspended and therefore technically still employed. I am at my wit’s end and I believe the continuation of this suspension is a breach of my rights.”

The teacher, who has had Covid and recovered within a week with no side effects, said there were at least three other unvaccinated staff at his school still on suspension.

Teachers at a rally over the mandates.

He said many vaccinated teachers at the school had been intermittently working from home since Term I and his own children had more than three different classroom teachers this year.

Education Queensland said the suspensions were issued to staff for not complying with “lawful instructions” from employers to comply with the chief health officer’s direction.

“School staff who are not vaccinated against Covid-19, and do not have a valid medical exemption, are currently suspended,” the department said.

“The department currently has approximately 6000 fully-vaccinated individual relief teachers available.”

More than 4000 school staff are believed to have been sacked or stood down across the state since January for not being vaccinated against Covid, triggering fears of a classroom ‘ramping’ crisis and teacher shortage.

Education Minister Grace Grace said two per cent of Queensland’s 54,000 full-time equivalent state school teaching staff were not vaccinated with Education Queensland figures showing about 1080 full-time state school teacher suspensions.

Originally published as Suspended teacher’s desperate plea as vaccination mandate takes financial toll on young family