Libby school officials draw parents' ire for promoting vaccine drawing

Parents pressed Libby school officials this week about the role of district staff in promoting a prize-drawing contest aimed at boosting local vaccination rates.

While an independent, community group organized the drawing and the participation of school staff was limited to announcing the contest at the Libby Middle High School, parents at a June 14 school board meeting criticized the district for forcing opinions on students. They also argued the promotion could be viewed as discriminatory based on vaccine status.

Superintendent Ron Goodman opened by explaining the background of the controversy, which took a life of its own on local social media pages. In mid-May, school officials at the middle high school made three public announcements on subsequent days promoting a contest organized by Team 56, a local, volunteer public health organization.

The announcement said that anyone who had received a coronavirus vaccine was eligible to participate in a community drawing for prizes. Students and staff could sign up for the contest by providing their name and phone number. Goodman said participants in the drawing were not asked to share private medical information by the school.

Like lottery campaigns organized in other states, the drawing could have helped motivate residents to immunize themselves from the virus.

“We were hoping to do it as something fun to be a thank you for someone who cares about their neighbors,” said Susie Rice, an organizer with Team 56, during an interview in May.

Goodman told parents that it is common for the district to make public announcements for outside organizations. In the past, school officials have promoted Logger Days, the Libby Care Center and the Future Farmers of America.

Administrators also found that advertising the drawing contest cleared requirements laid out by the district’s policy for making school-wide announcements. Goodman told parents the school did not receive donations or any other form of financial compensation for announcing Team 56’s program.

After middle high school staff announced the drawing for the third time on May 13, Goodman said administrators began receiving calls from parents. The superintendent then learned from Debra Silk, an attorney with the Montana School Board Association, that the vaccine contest could violate a newly enacted law designed to prevent discrimination on the basis of an individual’s vaccine status.

House Bill 702, signed by Gov. Greg Gianforte in early May, generally restricts government agencies and private employers from requesting and acting on a person’s vaccination status.

Supporters of the legislation touted the bill as necessary to keep businesses from mandating that their employees be vaccinated and state departments from withholding foster care, food stamps and aid to unvaccinated families.

During a May interview, Goodman said Silk was unsure if the district violated the law since school staff were only promoting the drawing. Nevertheless, administrators discontinued the announcement.

In late May, state officials determined that vaccination incentives were permissible under the new law. Jim Murphy, division administrator with the state Department of Public Health and Human Services, said in a letter to Team 56 that the governor’s office had advised public health officials to press on with programs meant to improve vaccination rates.

Looking back on the incident, Goodman said he never would have thought that the announcements would have stirred up so much controversy.

Parents at the meeting pressed the superintendent on whether he found the school had discriminated against students by promoting the drawing.

“That would be a good case for someone to find out in a court of law as far as what discrimination based on vaccine status is,” Goodman said.

The group also questioned administrators on whether the announcement violated a district policy against promoting drugs. Goodman said that “drugs” in the district’s policy referred to illegal substances.

Parents also were upset that school officials failed to clarify in the announcements that an outside group organized the drawing. While school officials do not usually contact parents about announcements, parent Amy Johnson said she would have liked to hear about the district’s promotion of the drawing.

“We’re not anti-vaxxers, our kids have all their normal approved, you know, tried and true vaccines,” said Amy Johnson. “But it is different. It is a different type of vaccine.”

Johnson and other parents raised concerns about the short time frame in which researchers developed the vaccines and a perceived lack of data backing the safety of the vaccines.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says all coronavirus vaccines authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency use are safe and effective. Researchers evaluated the vaccines in tens of thousands of participants in clinical trials. The authorized vaccines have undergone and will continue to undergo the most intensive safety monitoring in U.S. history, according to the CDC website.

As of June 7, the CDC reports that healthcare workers have administered over 302 million doses of coronavirus vaccines across the country.

Along with opposing the announcement and drawing, parent Ryan Andreessen said he objected to the way teachers allegedly advocated for vaccines and generally expressed their personal opinions to students. Goodman agreed that it was not the role of teachers to express personal opinions.

Despite their criticisms, many of the parents who spoke at the meeting expressed their appreciation for administrators and teachers in the district.

“I also want to say that I appreciate the teachers, I appreciate the administrators, I think we’re fortunate to have the people we have,” said Andreessen.

Jim May, member of Team 56, thanked the school board on behalf of the volunteer group for safely keeping schools open throughout the past academic year and said Team 56 had not organized the drawing with malicious intent.

“As Team 56 kind of fades away, I just wanted to thank everybody,” he said.