NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) – Kathleen Lourence can’t wait to greet her first graders again in person.
“They won a pizza party and we’re going to celebrate that we’re back,” said Lourence, a professor at Rosebank Elementary in East Nashville.
But teachers will have to wait to get their COVID-19 vaccine in Davidson County. “It is not right that we have to do this. We should be better prepared as a state, as a city, ”she said.
Kathleen was willing to wait until it was her turn, so she learned that Metro Schools was getting back to personal learning.
“You know what, I have to protect myself and I have to protect my students, so I will do whatever it takes,” she said.
So she found the nearest county with vaccines available for educators, called another teacher friend, scheduled her appointments in White County and hit the road. After Kathleen and her friend were vaccinated, they took a photo to mark the milestone and send a message.
“Teachers should be vaccinated,” said Lourence. “I think the state really needs to fix its quotas. It’s really curious to me how Davidson and Shelby counties, the largest urban districts, don’t have enough doses for teachers.”
Metro Nashville Public Health says it cannot provide a timeline or estimate of when they could start vaccinating teachers, because they are still trying to vaccinate health workers. That is why Metro School superintendent Adrienne Battle told reporters on Monday that she expects Governor Bill Lee to intervene.
“If the leadership in Tennessee is serious about maintaining staff in classrooms, we need to make vaccination a priority now, not just on a chart, but in real life, right now,” said Battle.
Until that happens, Lourence plans to help all the other teachers who just can’t wait.
“If you want your kids back to school, this should be a priority. So, I think our state and municipal health departments really need to step up this, ”said Lourence.
Lourence and her friend are not the only ones who travel to get vaccinated. She says that several teachers at her school also traveled to Smith and Carroll counties and she heard about other teachers from other schools who did the same.