Teachers and school staff most likely to come face to face with students in the coming weeks received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on Wednesday, generating a range of emotions.
Among them, education workers said: provisional hope. Fear. Gratitude. Fault. Relief.
Diana Rowey, a music teacher at Woodstock Elementary School in southeastern Portland, said she sometimes struggled with feelings of isolation and concern for the future. Like the rest of her colleagues across the district, she interacted with her students through a screen and said that the months of virtual teaching made her appreciate much more the face-to-face time of previous years.
“It makes me appreciate even more the community building and the joyful moments we had in the classroom,” said Rowey.
Rowey has underlying medical conditions, she said, making it especially important that she be vaccinated before she can start teaching in person again.
She was among the thousands of education officials from across the metropolitan area of three counties who were scheduled for mass vaccination at the Oregon Convention Center. It opened for the first of that group – people working in K-12 education and day care centers and preschools – just days after Governor Kate Brown announced that they would be placed ahead of the elderly on the state’s priority list.
The Oregon Convention Center was swarming with National Guard reservists while school officials lined up, at least six feet apart, to check their early morning vaccination appointments.
The educators were transported to the facility’s cavernous ballroom, where Legacy Health and Providence Medical Group staff injected them with an injection of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. After waiting 15 minutes if there was a reaction and scheduling the appointment for a second dose, the inoculated educators were released.
Amanda Shwetzer, secretary and registrar at Glencoe Elementary, has also been working from home since last March, when Brown ordered state public schools to close.
Shwetzer told The Oregonian / OregonLive that he is happy that she and her colleagues can get the vaccine. But she said that it “breaks my heart” that she was vaccinated, while her mother, who lives in a nursing home, did not.
“If I could have given her my chance, I would have given it,” said Shwetzer.
Shwetzer said it is essential that she and her colleagues be vaccinated, otherwise they will not be comfortable returning to work. A survey by the Portland Public Schools Teachers’ Union showed that only about 14% of district educators were willing to return to classrooms in limited capacity, two hours at a time.
That was in December, when coronavirus infections were double what they are now and it was unclear when Oregon residents would start receiving doses of the vaccine. The high case count may not have been a factor, as only 16% of the educators interviewed said they would feel comfortable returning to classrooms if the case count decreased.
The union did not question its members about whether vaccination was a factor in their willingness to work there.
Several studies have found that children under 10 do not spread the coronavirus as commonly as pre-teens, teenagers and adults. The Oregon Health Authority reported 20 cases of coronavirus among the approximately 50,000 public school students who regularly attended face-to-face classes in December and so far in January.
Forty-three employees from these schools had positive results in the same period, although the agency did not track infections to classrooms.
Kathy Price, an administrative assistant at Cottonwood School, regularly interacts with several students when classes are in progress at the South Portland charter school.
She wears a lot of hats, she told The Oregonian / OregonLive. The price replaces absent teachers, performs disciplinary interventions for students and provides them with medical care.
She misses seeing her students and is sad because the children are growing and changing without her being able to witness their development.
“I just want to be around the kids again,” said Price.
That’s why Price said she was willing to be vaccinated, although she has reservations about the vaccine’s safety and potential long-term effects.
“The whole thing is so new,” said Price. “It is a relief that it is happening. But, at the same time, it’s kind of unknown. “
Kathy Price, administrative assistant at Cottonwood Charter School, pauses for a portrait before receiving her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Oregon Convention Center on January 27, 2021, in Portland. “The whole thing is so new,” she said, “It’s a relief that it’s happening. But at the same time, it’s kind of unknown.”Brooke Herbert / The Oregonian
Robin Kobrowski, director of the Beaverton School District, said that much of his work during distance learning involved providing emotional support to the team, including reaching out to people who may be struggling and developing relationships with everyone.
Many of its 75 teachers, administrators, assistants and other educators at Springville K-8 are grateful that they can be vaccinated “knowing that all Oregon citizens need it,” said Kobrowski.
Robin Kobrowksi, principal of Springville K-8 in the Beaverton school district, pauses for a portrait after receiving her first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the Oregon Convention Center on January 27, 2021, in Portland. “All educators are working to support students now,” she said. “Because we have followed the best we can – the guidelines – the vaccine is something we are interested in, in order to feel safe in a crowded indoor space.”Brooke Herbert / The Oregonian
The Oregon Convention Center is expected to administer approximately 2,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine per day to school district employees and early childhood workers throughout the metropolitan Portland area.
There are about 40,000 qualified educators in the area, in addition to another 20,000 or more daycare centers and preschoolers. Portland Public Schools, the largest district in the state, employ about 3,600.
The district divided its vaccine distribution list into four “waves”, with elementary educators and those who volunteered for their limited face-to-face sessions, two hours a day for classes composed of students in acute need of academic support.
Portland Public Schools officials hope it will take at least four weeks for all educators in the district to be vaccinated and state officials have designed an even longer schedule, estimating that only about three quarters of education workers at most will receive the first dose until the end of the first four weeks.
Oregon’s vaccination efforts are just one of many logistical hurdles that districts must eliminate before setting up a large-scale school reopening.
Most districts prioritized return to primary school students, according to their reopening plans.
At Portland Public Schools, officials say they plan to start offering face-to-face options for families of fifth graders and younger students in early February.
A first-grade teacher who received the first dose on Wednesday and received the second dose exactly on time would be considered fully immunized by March 3.
In the Lake Oswego district, Superintendent Lora De La Cruz announced that elementary school students will begin taking face-to-face classes in late February, postponing previous plans after a violent reaction from the teachers’ union.
Both De La Cruz and Portland superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero said vaccinations are a critical step in returning to classrooms.
Union leaders say that many educators are terrified of the prospect of returning to unvaccinated classrooms.
“Educators who have dedicated years of their lives to the education of Lake Oswego children were talking about leaving the classroom,” said Kelly Fitzsimmons, president of the Lake Oswego Education Association, after the district postponed its reopening plans.
Brooke Herbert contributed to this report.
– Eder Campuzano and Fedor Zarkhin