Teacher who become face of Illinois’ anti-mandate movement was actually vaccinated the whole time

‘Anti-mandate does not mean anti-vaccination,’ says Kadence Koen, who had been vaccinated for months by the time she publicly defied a vaccine mandate

A teacher who famously refused a state vaccine mandate had actually been vaccinated all along.

Kadence Koen, who teaches mathematics at Southeast High School in Springfield, Illinois, chose in September to take unpaid leave rather than show proof of vaccination or get tested weekly for Covid-19, as required under a state mandate for public education workers.

Since then, she has waged a public campaign of defiance against the rule, even as she faced disciplinary hearings and the possibility of termination.

“What brought me to this decision is that I’m a big fan of liberties and freedom in the country and personal rights,” Ms Koen told the State Journal-Register in September. “When my employer attempted to overstep my personal rights – my body, my choice – I came to the decision I had to stand up to this.”

But last week, Ms Koen appeared to give in. She uploaded a photo of her vaccination card to Facebook on Saturday, and said she had also sent a copy to school district officials. The dates on the card showed that she had gotten her shots on 29 June and 19 July – long before the mandate was announced in August.

So why had Ms Koen risked losing her job to protest a mandate for a vaccine she’d already had? The teacher attempted to explain this on Facebook.

“Anti-mandate does not mean anti-vaccination,” she wrote. “It means pro-freedom, pro-medical autonomy, pro-liberty. Shouldn’t all Americans agree with freedom of choice?”

Illinois’ Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, announced the mandate on 26 August, as the state battled a surge of Covid cases driven by the highly contagious Delta variant.

“Our current vaccination levels are not enough to blunt the ferocity of the Delta variant hospitalization surges,” Mr Pritzker said at the time. “In some regions, hospital administrators are asking for more help to manage the sheer number of incoming patients who, I’ll emphasize again, are almost exclusively individuals who have chosen no to have gotten the life-saving vaccine.”

Ms Koen is still on unpaid leave until 17 November, and her district has ordered her to complete a “remediation plan.” She hopes to be back in school after that.

In the end, the teacher says missing her students was what got her to finally comply.

“I didn’t want to have to produce a vaccination card because I don’t think that’s legal or appropriate, but if you ask me to choose between my personal beliefs and my students, my students will win,” Ms Koen told the Journal-Register. “I can’t imagine my life not teaching.”