NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) – Kathleen Lourence can not wait to greet her first class in person again.
“They’ve earned a pizza party and we’re going to celebrate being together again,” said Lourence, a teacher at Rosebank Elementary in East Nashville.
But teachers will have to wait to get their COVID-19 vaccine in Davidson County. “It’s not good that we have to do this. We should have been better prepared as a state, as a city,” she said.
Kathleen was willing to wait until it was her turn, and then she heard that Metro schools were returning to personal learning.
“You know what, I have to protect myself and protect my students, so I’m going to do what I have to do,” she said.
So she found the nearest province with vaccinations available to educators, called another teacher friend, discussed their appointments in White County, and took the road. After Kathleen and her friend were vaccinated, they took a photo to mark the milestone and to send a message.
“Teachers need to be vaccinated,” Lourence said. “I think the state really needs to get its fate right. It’s very curious to me how Davidson and Shelby, the largest urban districts, do not have enough doses for teachers.”
Metro Nashville Public Health says they cannot give a timeline or estimate of when they can start vaccinating teachers because they still want to vaccinate health workers. That’s why Metro School Superintendent Adrienne Battle told reporters Monday she hopes Governor Bill Lee will step in.
“If the leadership in Tennessee is serious about keeping staff in classrooms, we need to make vaccinations a priority right now, not just on a chart, but in real life as well,” Battle said.
Until that happens, Lourence plans to help all the other teachers who just can’t wait.
“If you want your kids back in school, that should be a priority. So I think our departments of health and state health really need to push it,” Lourence said.
Lourence and her friend are not the only ones traveling to be vaccinated. She says a handful of teachers at her school have also traveled to Smith and Carroll Counties and she has heard of other teachers at other schools doing the same.