There has been a heated debate over Massachusetts’ priority vaccine schedule. Complaints that educators are not vaccinated earlier became louder last week civil servants have announced that they intend to enforce districts to return elementary grades to personal tuition five days a week next month.
More than 30 other states allow teachers to be vaccinated. In Massachusetts, teachers must be eligible in the next phase of that, although no specific date has yet been set.
But even while state teachers’ unions and lawmakers have called on Baker to dismiss teachers, the governor said the limited supply of vaccine by the state means he can not prioritize tens of thousands of teachers yet. Baker defended his timeline and CDC leadership stressed that it is safe for teachers to return to classrooms without vaccination.
“Learning in a classroom is the best and safest place for students, and public health data still proves that schools pose a very low risk for COVID transmission when safety protocols are followed,” a governor’s spokesman said Tuesday.
State officials on Tuesday night did not immediately answer questions about how Biden’s announcement would change the state’s vaccine plans.
The federal government also appears ready to address the supply problem that Baker cited as a major obstacle: Biden also promised Tuesday to give vaccine doses to teachers. directly through pharmacies.
Teachers’ unions and their allies quickly praised the president – saying they hoped government officials would meet his challenge on give at least one vaccine dose to the teachers by the end of the month.
“It makes me feel like our president values education as a priority, and I want our governor to value us as a priority,” said Beth Kontos, president of the American Federation of Teachers, Massachusetts. “I have not seen it yet and I hope he will make the turn.”
House President Ronald Mariano and Senate President Karen E. Spilka said Baker should focus on vaccinating teachers because they have to shell out their personal attendance.
Spilka said on Tuesday that if Baker wants teachers to return, “we need a vaccination program for aggressive teachers and staff, and we need it this month.” And Mariano, noting that he was “encouraged” by Biden’s plan for educators, said: ‘We have a lot of work to do to restore confidence in personal learning, and this is not happening by forcing districts to re-establish to open, but by inoculating. teachers and staff immediately. ”
Twenty-one state lawmakers wrote to Baker Monday that the state’s 72,000 teachers, as well as school administrators and staff, should receive doses of the recently approved one-shot vaccine Johnson & Johnson so they can be forced back into the classroom by [the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education] it’s safe. ”
When legislators were asked about supply constraints, the state simply should not require teachers to go back to school in person if there are not enough doses.
“April is not a realistic target if they know there is no supply,” said State Representative Brandy Fluker Oakley, a Mattapan Democrat and former teacher.
Education Commissioner Jeff Riley is asking that elementary schools return personally full-time in April with older students to eventually follow. Before Riley can mandate the full-time return, his plan must be approved by the State Council for Elementary and Secondary Education, which is expected to vote on it Friday.
The administration provided other resources to schools, including a testing program.
Despite the uncertainty about how many doses the Johnson & Johnson Massachusetts vaccine will receive, the new influx of doses is already increasing the pressure on Baker to prioritize teachers.
Teachers’ unions in Massachusetts have been pressuring state officials for weeks to join the majority of other states to qualify teachers for vaccinations. Some or all educators, according to Education Week publication, are already eligible for the vaccine in 34 states, including Connecticut and New York. The Los Angeles School District, the country’s second largest, will have enough vaccine doses by the end of next week to reopen its campuses in elementary schools, reports the Los Angeles Times.
“There’s no time to waste,” said Merrie Najimy, president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, recommending a pilot program proposed last month by a coalition of labor organizations that quickly educate teachers in at least 20 high-need schools. will vaccinate.
Boston Teachers Union president Jessica Tang praised the 21 lawmakers for the urgent Baker, emphasizing that a full-time return to personal learning requires thorough health plans from state leaders.
“If they want this to happen, it has to go hand in hand with a well-thought-out and detailed plan on how all educators and school staff are actually going to be vaccinated,” she said.
It is even more important that teachers who are already back in school get preference, she said. Prekindergarten students through third-grade students began returning to public schools in Boston on Monday for personal learning. Tang estimates that more than half of the union’s 7,500 members are already back in school buildings.
Meanwhile, a petition is circulating online in a push to award Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses to teachers. As of Tuesday night, more than 5,300 people had signed up.
Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and former head of infectious diseases at Massachusetts General Hospital, said that vaccinating teachers is not a prerequisite for opening schools, and that there is increasing data that suggests that schools can reopen safely. ”
Massachusetts has improved its national position in the distribution of vaccines in recent weeks and is currently ranked first in the first doses administered per capita among states with a population of more than 5 million people.
Matt Stout of the Globe staff contributed to this report.
Emma Platoff can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @emmaplatoff. Felicia Gans can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @FeliciaGans.