It is too late to save much of this school year for students who remain locked out of their classrooms most days – and we will have to do much more than just wait to catch up. But the start of the SC teachers’ vaccination season on Monday is still encouraging.
Not because COVID-19 puts teachers at greater risk than other key staff. People are really safer at school than anywhere that is not locked in their homes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And they are certainly less at risk of death or serious illness than older residents.
No, it is encouraging because, even if we cannot save an entire semester, giving teachers their first chance this week or next and their second chance three weeks later should still mean that school districts that have not done so will be willing to allow students return to the classroom full time in mid-April. And for summer schools, what they should offer. And in the fall.
It is encouraging because fully vaccinated teachers are teachers who do not need quarantine when they come into contact with someone who is infected, meaning that fewer students would have to sit in their classroom with a nanny instead of a teacher – or less they would have to stay home because so many teachers are quarantined that the school is closed.
Because a teacher who goes to work scared – even if unjustifiably – cannot concentrate on being the great teacher these students need.
Because every day a teacher goes to work scared puts that teacher one day closer to leaving the profession, and deepening our shortage of teachers.
The arrival of the teachers’ vaccination season in South Carolina is encouraging because it demonstrates that many of our school districts are organized and proactive enough to make everything work in advance so that they can open vaccination clinics as soon as the governor allows it. It was also Monday.
We share the belief of SC Superintendent of Education, Molly Spearman, that Governor Henry McMaster should not have overturned the CDC guidelines last month and pushed teachers below the older southern carolins for vaccinations.
But we also share his belief that his order requiring them to make deals with local medical providers meant that school districts were in a position to spare teachers the hassle of having to schedule their appointments individually and to put teachers in front of the queues that opened Monday to everyone aged 55 or over, all with cancer, heart disease, diabetes and many other medical conditions, as well as everyone whose job requires them to work close to other people, even if those jobs do not fall under the “essential” category ”. And they did.
The Charleston County school district opened what could have been less than two weeks of vaccination clinics on Tuesday. Dorchester District 2 started vaccinating its employees on Monday and is due to end on Wednesday, and the Horry County school district plans to hold its first of two days of vaccination on Friday. Even Columbia’s Richland 1, which was one of the last resisters to allow children to return to the classroom, has vaccinations scheduled for teachers for Friday and Saturday.
According to Spearman’s spokesman, they were among more than 40 of the state’s 79 traditional school districts that started vaccination clinics this week. This includes seven school districts that vaccinated their teachers last week – York 1, 2, 3 and 4, Dillon 3, Florence 1 and Darlington – using President Joe Biden’s order requiring retail pharmacies to prioritize teachers.
Districts that have not yet scheduled vaccines need to start working, and the state needs to provide all possible assistance. And teachers who are still wondering when they might be vaccinated may want to consider that, even if the governor had prioritized them, they would probably still be waiting for their district officials – and would redirect some of their anger accordingly.