HASCA and Covid

HASCA is the local homeschooling organisation that organises and provides a centre for sport and cultural activities for homeschoolers on the North Shore (Auckland).

In some cases, it's the only place that local homeschoolers can access activities (as otherwise it's via the schools).

Today, as HASCA members, we received an email from HASCA leadership:

Re: Temporary Hibernation

14/12/21

Dear HASCA members and friends,

We have been silent throughout lockdown and the subsequent change from the Alert Level System to the Covid Protection Framework (CPF) as, 1) we have basically been unable to operate, and 2) we have wanted to watch and wait and make a considered decision on how HASCA will move forward under the new mandates.

As well as the government’s directives, our decisions have been influenced by the organisations we partner with - the sports organisations, programme providers, and the venues we hire and utilise to bring our classes and programmes to our home-schooling community. Unfortunately, many are either under government mandate themselves, or have their own in-house mandates which will impact on HASCA’s operations and our ability to provide any sort of non-discriminatory programme for the immediate future.

HASCA strives to be an inclusive organisation that brings people together, connects and supports, and “creates community” for all home educating families. Therefore, segregating or excluding participation based on vaccine status is not something we feel comfortable adopting, and is not where our hearts are placed. Our goal has always been to bring people together, not to divide. We do not want to operate any of what we previously offered if participation and inclusion is based on a vaccine status or the presence of a vaccine-pass. It is for this reason that the HASCA committee has decided that HASCA and all activities operating under our umbrella will hibernate for the foreseeable future. This has been a difficult decision for us, but we simply cannot run programmes knowing we must exclude select families.

[...]

We think they've got this badly wrong.  They make it sound like vaccinations are mostly meaningless, having no significant impact on the health and safety of others who we might interact with.  We have replied to them as follows:

Hi HASCA leadership,

 

As long-term HASCA members we respectfully disagree with this HASCA decision.  We hope that you will reconsider.

 

It's sad that it's the kids who will be the losers in this HASCA decision.  Something is better than nothing for homeschooled children; for HASCA to remove this option for local families is wrong as in many cases this is the only place where local homeschooling children can participate.

 

There is no unfair discrimination in the vaccine pass mandates; it's about following the science, protecting the vulnerable, giving people free choices, then people accepting the consequences of their free choices.  Requiring vaccine passes when people gather in larger groups protects everyone by slowing down the transmission of a contagious disease that would otherwise overwhelm the hospitals.  In saying this, we accept the overwhelming majority opinion of the experts.  As homeschoolers, we aim to model good reasoning to our children.

 

We feel that as a vaccinated family we have done the right thing for the community, and it is not right that vaccinated families are now being penalised by HASCA, just because of the free choices of non-vaccinated families.

 

We assume this means that HASCA won't be organising the Athletics Day and Swimming Day in 2022.  But please do let us know if anything changes.

 

Glenn, Xiaoying, Mulan and Miya

Likely, next year our family would have done the HASCA Athletics and Swimming Days in term 1 (which we help organise), and Miya would have signed up for the HASCA netball team (terms 2 and 3).

UPDATE (17/12/2021): HASCA also posted a similar announcement to their Facebook page, to which I commented that we (our family) respectfully disagreed with their decision and linked to this blog for details.

To date there have been four responses.  Three other members commented on the Facebook announcement, thanking the HASCA committee for their work.  And HASCA leadership emailed me privately, letting me know that the HASCA committee unanimously agreed with the decision.  At no time so far has anyone responded to the substantive points.

I want to emphasise that everyone has been extremely polite and nice about it.  Everyone thanks each other and wishes each other all the best.  Once again, I have no doubt that everyone sees themselves as the good guys -- they believe they are doing the decent and right thing.  And for the most part they are.  Homeschoolers really are nice people, and we enjoy spending time with them.

But I also want to acknowledge that old saying -- the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

In this situation, HASCA leadership has made the decision to block access to education for local homeschooled children.  They can coat it with nice words, but the fact remains that they have made things worse for local homeschooled children.

The only reason they have given for this so far is that they think that the vaccine pass requirement for large group gatherings is unfairly discriminatory, and they don't want to exclude anyone.  So they'd rather exclude everyone.

It is fair enough if, individually, their families (committee members and the three Facebook commentators) choose to not participate until all families can participate -- that is their free right to freely choose for themselves.  (I understand that some families see HASCA as more about social gatherings.)

But it is wrong for HASCA leadership to deny other families the opportunity to make this free choice for themselves.  And it is wrong for HASCA leadership to reduce educational opportunities for children without providing alternatives.  As I see it, HASCA leadership has overstepped their duties by dictating (mistaken) morals to their members, while at the same time failing to uphold their more fundamental duty of providing educational opportunities to children that are otherwise only available to schooled children.

In my opinion, the correct thing for HASCA committee to do is to keep HASCA operating (for now), but acknowledge and accept the right for any HASCA families to not participate until they feel comfortable doing so.  This may mean a reduced leadership group, and committee members would be more than free to step aside for now.  It may also mean that HASCA would need to ask members to join the committee to continue to keep things running (I would consider it, if necessary); if they were unable to get the committee numbers then hibernating would be the right choice.

Given the (limited) feedback to date, there is a distinct possibility that a significant number of HASCA members are either (a) unable to participate because they have chosen to not vaccinate, or (b) unwilling to participate as they (mistakenly) see vaccine pass mandates as unfairly discriminatory.  If this is the case, then there is a distinct possibility that activity sign-up numbers would be too low to proceed anyway.  And so there is a distinct possibility that most (or all) HASCA activities would have to practically stop anyway due to insufficient numbers.   If this is the case, then so be it.

But HASCA leadership should have kept things going long enough to find this out first, one way or the other.  They should have opened it up to the members first, for the members to freely decide.  They should not have denied freedoms to their members.  And they should have thought more about the children who are missing out because of their decision to stop offering activities.