The administrator of a Head Start program in Washington state said she fought “like hell” to keep her job in the face of state and federal vaccine mandates for program staff, which are still they maintain even if the rest of the country withdraws the pandemic restrictions.
Sarah Werling, manager of the Head Start center in Friday Harbor, Wash., told Fox News Digital that due to state regulations, she was barred from the classroom until this fall when Gov. Jay Inslee lifted the ‘state coronavirus emergency.
Last October, her program initially granted her a religious exemption, but she was told she would have to be reassigned from her job. Werling said she rejected that decision before she was allowed to keep her job, with an accommodation that prevented her from coming into contact with “children, families and staff,” essentially banishing her from the classroom.
However, even now with Washington’s regulations lifted, Werling says she is required to get tested for COVID-19 once a week and must wear a mask when in the classroom because of the Head Start rules for religious exemptions. The proof requirement is consistent with the guidelines set forth in the HHS interim final rule for religious exemptions.
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“We’re working on early childhood education,” Werling said, talking about the effect of the mask mandate on her students. “This is the peak time that their brains are developing and all these social cues — they’re being lost.”
The Department of Health and Human Services recently removed its mask mandate for children in the federal Head Start and Early Head Start programs. In many states, however, staff members are still required to be vaccinated in order to perform their duties without restriction.
(AP Photo/Chris O’Meara, File)
Werling, who is also the school board director-elect on San Juan Island, also said she “still feels[s] excluded” by the terms of her religious accommodation, which requires her to wear a mask when others don’t need to. She also said she worries about others who may not have been able to fight for their jobs like she did.
“I would have left two years ago, but I believe in it so much,” Werling said of Head Start. “I’ve been through hell.”
“Programs have lost quality staff to those who chose not to get vaccinated, and programs have not hired quality staff because of the vaccination requirements for new employees,” Werling added.
The Department of Health and Human Services still mandates that staff at about half of the nation’s Head Start programs be vaccinated for COVID-19, despite loosened CDC guidelines and a recent legal order halting the mandate
HHS revoked its masking mandate for young children in Head Start, an early childhood education program that serves vulnerable children, after political pressure last month. Shortly thereafter, U.S. District Court Judge Terry A Doughty ruled that the department did not have the authority to order masks or vaccines for program staff, which it did concurrently in an “interim final rule” last year .
The agency of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital asking if it plans to revoke its vaccination mandate for staff members.
(AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, file)
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“There’s nothing inside [federal law] which would allow the Agency defendants to make medical decisions for employees and volunteers and/or require that students in years two (2), three (3) and four (4) wear masks for most of the day,” he said Doughty wrote in his ruling.
However, Doughty limited the injunction he issued to just the 24 states behind the lawsuit against the coronavirus mandates. That left the rest of the country, except Texas, which blocked enforcement of the mandate through a separate case, still subject to the requirement to vaccinate Head Start employees.
Meanwhile, CDC guidelines no longer differentiate between vaccinated and unvaccinated people. The new guidelines cite the fact that breakthrough infections regularly occur in vaccinated people and that unvaccinated people often have natural immunity due to a previous infection.
Sen. John Thune, RSD, pressed the Biden administration to reverse the Head Start mask mandate.
(Susan Walsh/Getty Images)
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HHS, headed by Secretary Xavier Becerra, did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital asking if it plans to rescind its vaccine mandate for staff.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune, RS.D. who was one of the lawmakers who pressured the Biden administration to drop the Head Start mask mandate before it did so last month, said Tuesday that the vaccine mandate should go as well.
“Americans have had it with government masks and vaccine mandates,” Thune said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “If the pandemic ends, as the president himself declared, these misguided and outdated federal policies should end today in every state.”
Nikolas Lanum of Fox News contributed to this report.
