Florida School To Vaccinated Teachers: Stay Away From Students

MIAMI, FL — Public health officials nationwide have stressed the importance of educators getting the coronavirus vaccine. It’s essential to a return to in-person learning, many say.

While most schools have responded accordingly — encouraging vaccinations among staff and, at times, going so far as to facilitate vaccine events — a private school in Miami’s Design District went in a different direction last week.

In a letter sent by Centner Academy co-founder Leila Centner, employees were told that if they chose to get a coronavirus vaccine, they were not welcome back this fall. They were also told that if they did receive the vaccine, they would be “physically distanced” from students.

Centner went on, citing a false claim that vaccine recipients can somehow “pass” the vaccine onto others.

“We have at least three women with menstrual cycles impacted after having spent time with a vaccinated person,” Centner wrote, according to The Times.

If employees chose to wait until summer to get vaccinated, they were told they could return only when clinical trials conclude and if their job was still available.

The news didn’t sit well with some parents of Centner students.

“It’s very important to shed some light on this,” one parent, who asked to remain anonymous, told Science magazine. “She is purporting that vaccinated people somehow harm others.”

Despite Centner’s claims, the coronavirus vaccine cannot “shed” from an immunized person to an unvaccinated woman and somehow affect her reproductive system, according to a fact check conducted by Reuters.

“This is a conspiracy that has been created to weaken trust in a series of vaccines that have been demonstrated in clinical trials to be safe and effective,” Dr. Christopher Zahn, vice president at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told Reuters.

Centner Academy is known for not enforcing vaccination mandates, according to multiple reports. The school hosted two January talks at which Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a known anti-vaccine espouser, shared his views and met with children, according to NBC News citing posts shared on Centner's Facebook page.

Centner’s husband, David Centner, also helped Kennedy produce an hourlong film promoting COVID-19 vaccination conspiracy theories, NBC reported.