As teachers and other school workers approach the next eligibility tier for COVID-19 vaccinations, some educators are asking health officials to prioritize those already working in classrooms.
“There should be some kind of differentiation for the teachers and support staff that are with the kids currently,” said Vista Unified School District Trustee Martha Alvarado, who is a first-grade teacher working in-person at the Escondido Union School District.
The first COVID-19 shots in San Diego County were targeted at health care workers and people in long-term care facilities through the first tiers of Phase 1A in the county’s vaccination plan. Those over 65 got the next green light for vaccination, to be followed next by workers in the fields of education and childcare, emergency services, and food and agriculture.
Vaccinating teachers and other school staff has been seen as a way to protect employees and hasten school reopenings. But winter spikes in COVID-19 rates and new, more infectious strains of the disease have pushed back timelines for those goals. Meanwhile, new state orders outline additional conditions for reopening campuses. That has left students and their families uncertain whether schools that aren’t already open will go back at all this spring.
Out of more than a half-million children in school in San Diego County, just about 6 percent are learning in person full time, while an additional 14 percent are in classrooms part time through various “hybrid” leaning options, according to figures from the San Diego County Office of Education. The remaining 80 percent are in full-time distance learning, most of them for nearly a year.
Vaccination plans for the education sector have aimed to ensure that teachers and support staff are ready to go when conditions permit schools to reopen. With a majority of students likely to remain in virtual learning for the foreseeable future, however, some educators are saying vaccines should be rolled out first to staff members working on campus now.
“Under the governor’s guidelines and California Department of Public Health, school districts have to be at a certain metric point to reopen, a certain infection point,” Alvarado said. “Knowing that, many schools won’t be able to open any time soon until the numbers are significantly reduced in infection rates. Which led me to ask the supervisors in an email if there is any way to differentiate the school districts that are seeing kids now.”
Bob Mueller, special projects coordinator with the San Diego County Office of Education, said school officials in San Diego County have discussed the possibility of administering vaccines first to teachers and support staff currently working in person. He said county authorities did not consider it possible to distinguish between teachers and other staff working on campus from those working remotely.
“I think there are many school leaders that have that same concern,” he said. “What we’ve been told by the county is that with the logistics that they face in opening centers — everything from safely transporting and storing vaccines, staffing centers, getting things open — that layering on additional priorities would be beyond their ability to manage.”
There are about 60,000 public school employees in California, Mueller said, along with many other substitute teachers, after school program staff, private school teachers and employees, and daycare workers. County supervisors contacted for this story confirmed that school staff are among those next in line for vaccination, but did not respond to questions about how they would prioritize among that group.
“I believe strongly that the most vulnerable should be given the vaccine immediately, to save as many lives as possible,” Supervisor Jim Desmond said in a statement. “Also, I’m advocating for the County of San Diego to allow both law enforcement and teachers to receive the vaccine right now. We must get our teachers vaccinated, so we can get our kids back in the classroom.”
The discussion about the role of vaccination in school reopening reflects the shifting nature of COVID-19 responses in California and among local school districts. As pandemic conditions have changed, district and state officials have developed and then revised or reversed school reopening plans. Districts have set dates to reopen campuses and then postponed them repeatedly, or opened them only to shut down soon afterward in response to positive COVID-19 cases on campus.
Gov. Newsom’s updated school reopening plan, released two weeks ago, was touted as an effort to help schools reopen sooner. When it rolled out, however, school officials were flummoxed by what appeared to be new restrictions to in-person education. Under the previous plan, schools that did not reopen during the “red tier” of COVID-19 restrictions can’t do so as long as their county remains in the more restrictive “purple tier.” Officials previously understood reopening to include small, targeted learning groups that many schools have offered on campus. The new order rules that out, stating that a school must have offered in-person learning to all students of at least one grade to qualify as reopened, effectively canceling January reopening plans for some districts.
Moreover, the state order requires schools, including middle and high schools, to serve students in “stable groups” once they reopen. Since most secondary schools operate on multi-period schedules with students changing class each hour or so, keeping them in small groups together would not be possible, particularly mid-semester. If those requirements remain, it’s uncertain whether middle and high school campuses could reopen at all this spring.
In a recent letter to Gov. Newsom, the California Teachers Association signaled that vaccination should also be considered a condition of reopening, raising the possibility that complete vaccination will be the next item added to a lengthening list of criteria.
“Vaccines for employees are a key element to safe in-person school reopening,” the letter stated.
Recent studies have shown that schools don’t play a major role in spreading the virus, and that basic safety procedures may be the most important measures. The Centers for Disease Control recently published a letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association citing research showing that with proper precautions, school reopening is safe. It found minimal incidence of COVID-19 transmission on school campuses, even before the onset of vaccination campaigns, but noted that face coverings, social distancing and other safeguards must be maintained.
“As many schools have reopened for in-person instruction in some parts of the US as well as internationally, school-related cases of COVID-19 have been reported, but there has been little evidence that schools have contributed meaningfully to increased community transmission,” the letter stated.
Ginny Merrifield, founder of an advocacy group, the Parent Association of North County San Diego, said teachers should be high on the list for vaccination in order to prepare for the return to in-person learning. But, she added, other safety measures have shown effectiveness in reducing campus transmission of the virus, and school reopenings should proceed as soon as possible, even as the vaccine rollout is underway.
“I think we should prioritize all the teachers, but it shouldn’t be a prerequisite for reopening, because there are examples of elementary and secondary schools that are open right now, but have not been proven to be vectors of transmission,” she said. “Teachers are essential workers, and we should prioritize their access to vaccines. Things are changing very rapidly, and as soon as we are able to reopen at school, we want to be able to do so. So we would like all our teachers and staff at public schools to get vaccinated.”
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Teachers next up for vaccinations; should those now in classroom go first? - The San Diego Union-Tribune
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