TEACHERS NEED VACCINES, NOW
If you want to understand how society values your life, wait for a pandemic and watch how it prioritizes your safety. If you’re a public-school teacher in Connecticut, you may not be a priority.
According to Education Week, more than half of the states have already made their public-school teachers eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations. That includes big blue ones like New York and California and smaller red ones like Arkansas and Alabama. But Connecticut isn’t on the list. Its teachers are not eligible for vaccinations.
In Connecticut, public school teachers have had to endure more than their fair share of crises. They’ve had school-shooting reminders ever since the Sandy Hook massacre; active-shooter drills have become their way of life. Some years ago, my wife, a middle school teacher, arrived at school one morning to find a shelter-inplace kit on her desk consisting of a plastic tarp and big orange bucket with no instructions about what to do with them.
Now many teachers must deal with the potentially life-threatening decision of whether to work in classrooms with no protection against COVID-19. Each time I see a news report of another state or municipality agreeing to go back to in-classroom teaching now that their teachers are getting vaccinated, I have to laugh, because many Connecticut school districts have reopened classrooms with no teacher vaccinations. Through a misunderstanding, some teachers in Connecticut were vaccinated in January even though only school nurses were supposed to get vaccinations. The governor says he expects teachers will be vaccinated in March.
The state’s coronavirus portal, however, says that a “final definition is forthcoming” on who will be eligible as a “frontline essential worker” when it rolls out its remaining Phase 1B, probably in March. Teachers might not fall under that definition.
It seems reasonable that a state would prioritize classroom teachers as frontline essential workers. It seems unreasonable that the state would require teachers to work in congregate settings without vaccinating them. But you can list Connecticut among the states that do put teachers in dangerous settings without protection.
That should surprise us because of what teachers have already endured. Like Sandy Hook, this is not supposed to happen here. Teachers are not supposed to be exposed to threats like these.