As many of you are aware, several districts have written letters to Governor Hochul to express concern about many pending Bills related to required vaccinations and medical procedures to minors without parental consent. A few members have requested that we share the letters we have collected thus far, they are found on our website under Resources.

When asking your school board to write a letter, it is important to note and to understand the governance process of legally (under a law) binding a child to a vaccine requirement. Simply put: when the Executive branch (Governor + Agencies) circumvent the Legislative branch (NYS Assembly + Senate, where laws are made), and push "requirements" or "mandates" through a regulation -- that is not under a law, then that requirement/mandate/regulation is unlawful and illegal. This has been proven multiple times in NYS' Supreme Courts, federal and also in the US Supreme Court this past June.  

The distinction between a law and a regulation may be confusing -- a Law starts as a Bill in the Legislature which is voted upon and if passed, it is signed by the Governor into Law (please see the image below from the NY Senate website). The Law is then put into practice through regulations, which are made by an Agency of the Executive branch. It is the job of the elected Governor and the appointed Agency Commissioners to carry out laws made by the Legislature -- not to make regulations that are not covered under a law. So any regulation and any vaccine mandate that is not based on a Law which was voted upon by our state elected officials in the Legislature and then legally put on the vaccine schedule, is an unlawful and illegal mandate.

Creating regulations that act as law but are not based on a law, through unelected bureaucratic agencies is illegal, unconstitutional and violates every single person's rights.  The highest court of the state and the country has ruled this. In NYS no appeal has been won yet to overturn this ruling. The court cases are listed on our website under Resources, scroll down past the BOE letters.

If the Executive branch and its agencies (Hochul, NYSDOH and NYSDOE, etc.) implement a mandate on vaccines, the School Boards will be the only elected officials that vote on the mandate.

If a mandate circumvents the Legislature and is pushed through Regulations then, except for School Board members -- not one other elected official will have cast a vote to pass it into law. Our State Legislators don't want to vote on this, they don't want the political blowback. Instead, they will push it to the lowest, elected, unpaid, volunteer officials in the state -- the members of the Boards of Education.

School Boards need to think about that and to understand that they took an Oath -- to uphold proper laws, not mandates and illegal regulations.  

These letters need to be clear and not begging for permission or leniency on an issue that is not LAW. The request in these letters must shift to holding our state elected officials accountable. PASS it the legal way or leave the children's covid vaccine up to the parents.

The answer this time is to stay united and to lead our districts collectively on this issue. Parents need to start having these conversations, not with frustration or anger, but with an understanding of the law-making process to back up their requests for districts to stand with the children. 

If only a few of us stand we will be ignored, but if we all stand together and united for parental rights, for the medical freedom of our children, and against the abuse of power then we will prevail.