Schools plan staff vaccination clinics as early as Monday
School districts are wasting no time getting vaccines into the arms of educators.
With teachers and school staff eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine starting Monday, school officials are devising ambitious plans to inoculate their teams.
The move is billed as part of a broader push to increase safe in-person instruction, which studies have shown is better for learning.
Bridgeport
“We’re working right now with the Bridgeport Department of Public Health to schedule dates and times for staff to come in,” said schools Superintendent Michael Testani.
All Bridgeport Public Schools educators who want the vaccine should be able to get their first dose and schedule their second dose within the next two to three weeks, he said.
The district plans to call in teachers and staff who expressed interest in the vaccine by school.
“We have a school that’s
basically all preschool special education students, so that staff will be at the top of the list,” he said, “as well as schools that have high numbers of in-person learners.”
The order of schools will also depend on the number of dosages Bridgeport receives, to “get as close to the supply that we have for the week as possible,” he added.
Fairfield
In Fairfield, the local health department will host a vaccination clinic on Monday for public and private school teachers and staff. More than 1,000 eligible educators have scheduled appointments.
“At our clinics, we don’t discriminate if you’re from one town or another, but the vast majority of the people signed up are from Fairfield Public Schools,” Sands Cleary, Fairfield’s health director, told teachers and families on Thursday. He added that the town requested additional vaccines from the state for the sites.
Future clinics will depend on Fairfield’s supply.
“Our plan is to provide as much of the vaccine as we’re provided,” he said.
Apart from the educator-specific clinic, “teachers
and school support staff may also schedule their vaccine anywhere in the state that is most convenient for them,” said Fairfield public schools spokesperson Andrea Clark. “We are pleased that the state has recognized the importance of providing vaccines to all teachers and school support staff.”
Westport
In Westport, Superintendent Thomas Scarice said the district will be hosting a clinic from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday
for public school employees in Westport, Weston and Easton. About 1,000 Westport Public Schools employees, and even more school bus drivers and volunteers, could be eligible for the vaccine on March 1.
The clinic had 500 doses available as of Friday, with 250 allocated for Westport, 125 for Weston and 125 for Easton, Scarice said, although the supply could increase by next week.
“It could be more,” Scarice said. “The state indicated the supply might
be growing.”
Scarice said the local health district is a “central player” in the school system’s rollout. The district will procure, store and distribute the vaccine to the educator-specific clinic.
The districts are following the state’s lead and prioritizing vaccinations based on age, he said. Some employees have already been vaccinated based on previous eligible groups, and Scarice said he anticipates they’ll be able to inoculate all staff age 45 and older on Wednesday.
He said they could expand into the next age band if supply allows.
Westport school nurses will administer the vaccine and school staff will do the data entry for the intake so they can vaccinate as many people as possible in four hours, Scarice said.
Monroe
Monroe has also tentatively set up a vaccine clinic for staff from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday at Masuk High, with more details to come.
Still planning
Other southwest Connecticut school districts are finalizing plans for vaccination sites.
Stratford Superintendent Janet Robinson told the school board on Monday that the moment she heard educators were eligible, she called the local health department.
“We’re trying to figure out how to have some hub vaccination times for our staff,” she said. “We do have seven of our nurses who are considered vaccinators and we could use those for an all-day Saturday vaccination clinic, so we’re looking at doing that — anything we can facilitate helping get our staff vaccinated.”
In Ansonia, Superintendent Joseph DiBacco sent a letter to staff on Thursday saying the names of all school staff who expressed interest in getting the vaccine will be in the Vaccination Administration Management System (VAMS) system on March 1.
He added that he’s in talks with the Naugatuck Valley Health Department and Griffin Hospital to set up vaccination clinics for staff.
DiBacco said last week he’s communicated with other school officials in the lower Naugatuck Valley about the sites. Staff at Assumption School and the school district’s bus drivers will be included, he said, and childcare providers could be as well. About 90 percent of school employees expressed interest in the vaccine, and none will be put ahead of others, he said.
“We’re not prioritizing staff at all,” he said. “I don’t want to be the guy to decide who gets it first.”
As of Friday, Trumbull Superintendent Martin Semmel was getting on the phone with the state health department, and said he had plans to get in touch with staff shortly after.
“We do not plan on doing any kind of prioritization as that would simply slow down the process,” he said in an email.
Shelton’s central office staff will meet about vaccine roll-out on Monday.