State hopes to vaccinate all educators by the end of March

It started with a two-week shutdown.

One year ago this week, Gov. Tom Wolf announced that all schools across Pennsylvania would close their buildings for 10 business days to help slow the spread of COVID-19.

What happened next for schools locally and nationwide changed the landscape of education in countless ways. Remote learning and hybrid instruction became household terms. The digital divide and other disparities in education were exposed. The word “unprecedented” became a cliche.

While many schools have reopened for at least some in-person instruction since then, officials have said around half of Pennsylvania’s K-12 students have not been in a classroom since the initial shutdown.

But this week — a year since the closures started — vaccination clinics for Pennsylvania educators and support staff have opened at intermediate units and elsewhere across the state, beginning a process that could soon lead to the full reopening of schools.

“After an unprecedented year of shifts and turns and tensions, this vaccine is a bright light that will help to create the conditions for teachers and school staff to return where they want and need to be: in classrooms,” acting state Education Secretary Noe Ortega said Friday at a virtual news conference.

Randy Padfield, director of the PennsylvaniaEmergencyManagement Agency, said that as of the close of the clinics Thursday, more than 6,500 school and support staff members had been inoculated with the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine at intermediate units.

Clinics at 20 out of 28 intermediate units across the state were operational as of Friday, Mr. Padfield said, with the remaining sites set to open over the weekend.

The clinics will operate anywhere from one to nine days and focus on employees who work in pre-K to third grade settings.

Clinics will open for another round of vaccinations for the remaining school employees when the state receives more doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which the Wolf administration has prioritized for educators and support staff.

Mr. Padfield said a statewide survey showed that about 240,000 educators in the state were interested in getting the vaccine, although some have already been inoculated. Still, he said, the state hoped to receive an additional allocation of the J&J vaccine in the coming weeks and provide them to all school employees who want one before the end of March.

“The education initiative, we’re hopeful that we’re going to be able to finish that up by the end of March,” Mr. Padfield said. “However, that is going to be predicated on the amount of dose that we receive. That is not set in stone as of yet, and those dates aren’t necessarily set in stone.”

The clinic run by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, which serves Allegheny County’s 42 suburban school districts, was set to vaccinate 7,400 educators and support staff through March 18. An AIU spokeswoman said Thursday that the clinic had gotten off to a smooth start. AIU officials said they expected about 13,000 school employees in total would receive their vaccinations at the clinic.

In a separate initiative, about 3,000 first doses of the two-shot Pfizer COVID19 vaccine were given to Pittsburgh Public Schools employees and support staff Thursday and Friday at a clinic at Heinz Field run by Giant Eagle. Those employees will receive their second shots in early April.

Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contacted Giant Eagle last week to see how the O’Hara-based grocery store and pharmacy chain could help accelerate President Joe Biden’s goal of prioritizing vaccines for educators. Giant Eagle received an allocation of Pfizer vaccines through the federal government’s pharmacy plan and quickly partnered with the Pittsburgh Public Schools to get their staffers inoculated with the first dose.

About 1,400 other city school employees were expected to receive the J&J vaccine at the PittsburghMount Oliver Intermediate Unit clinic running through Sunday at Obama 6-12 in East Liberty.

Pittsburgh Public School officials said all employees of the district — which has been fully remote since March 2020 — would have an opportunity to receive at least the first dose by the end of the week.

The district is expected to reopen April 6 to elementary students as well as students with disabilities, English language learners and other vulnerable students. Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said the district expects all students will be able to return to their buildings before the end of the school year.

Mr. Padfield said providers like Giant Eagle that can supplement the state’s efforts for vaccinating educators will help speed up the process.

“They understood that we were focusing on the K3 space right now, so they were going to target outside of that,” he said. “That really becomes a force multiplier for us and will help take the numbers down for the second phase of vaccinating the educators.”