Pa. considers vaccine clinics for teachers
HARRISBURG — State leaders may call on the National Guard and Pennsylvania Emergency
Management Agency to set up COVID-19 vaccination clinics specifically for teachers, according to an email reviewed by The Morning Call and a public statement by a House member.
Such clinics, if established, could be a major step forward in the frustrating struggle to get students back into classrooms. The scope of education lost during the pandemic was described Monday as “generational” by acting Education Secretary Noe Ortega.
“This is not something that is
just a loss that can be made up in a matter of months,” he said.
The email, written by a lawmaker on a vaccine task force with the Wolf administration and several legislators, said PEMA and the Guard would work with staterun education intermediate units to establish the clinics.
Separately, Republican Rep. Lynda Culver of Northumberland County said during a House hearing Monday that she heard “PEMA and the National Guard will be utilizing the intermediate units across the commonwealth as clinics specifically for teachers.”
A spokesperson for Gov. Tom Wolf, Lyndsay Kensinger, declined Monday to respond to a question about the possible intermediate unit clinics.
“The task force continues to work on a plan for the rollout. The Administration hopes to announce specific details later this week,” Kensinger said in an email.
State Rep. Timothy O’Neal, a Washington County Republican and task force member, told Associated Press that Wolf and his acting health secretary on Sunday discussed making it possible for teachers to get vaccinated soon.
“I was under the impression that that was the way they were going,” O’Neal, who was prime sponsor of a newly enacted law that will let the Guard get heavily involved in the vaccine rollout, told the AP.
Currently, teachers are in phase 1B of the state’s vaccine rollout plan. State officials have given no timetable for completing phase 1A. Four members of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation — including U.S. Rep. Susan Wild, D-7th — wrote a letter to Wolf to back vaccine rollout changes “so that teachers and other frontline workers can have more certainty about how and when they will be able to be vaccinated.”
Education and COVID-19
Meanwhile, state education officials at the hearing Monday told lawmakers they are working on tools school districts will use to measure huge gaps in education progress caused by COVID19 disruptions.
Ortega’s statement about the magnitude of losses came in response to a question from Republican Rep. Jesse Topper of Bedford County.
Topper cited data from a national study that showed students who returned to class this school year had — because of COVID-19 disruptions — only 63%-68% of typical learning gains in reading in the previous year, and only 37%-50% of typical gains in math.
Deputy Education Secretary Matt Stem said, “The research that you cite is very consistent with all of the emerging research on the national level.”
But, he said, concern about education losses extends beyond reading and math to specific populations, including special education students, young primary grade students, English learners and students of color.
Stem said all “are being disproportionately impacted.” And, he said, the department feels a “sense of urgency” about helping school districts identify exactly where and how far behind normal education programs have fallen.
“Within the next five weeks, we are rolling out resources for districts,” Stem said. “They are tools to help them with their local identification, and then their strategies.”
Topper said blame ultimately would be spread around.
“I think history will judge us very poorly because I don’t think it was simply the virus that caused this,” he said. “I think it was a lack of political will at the state and local levels.”
The union representing South Whitehall Township’s 29 public works employees called off its nearly monthlong strike Monday after narrowly voting to accept a contract.
It’s now in the hands of township commissioners, who will vote on the contract at their board meeting Wednesday night.
The employees are returning to work Tuesday on the assumption that the ratification will go through Wednesday, Teamsters Local 773 business agent Brian Taylor said. If it doesn’t, union members are prepared to go back on strike, he said.
Union workers’ previous three-year contract expired Dec. 31. They went on strike shortly before midnight Feb. 4 and did not report for work Feb. 5, citing a frustration with perceived stalled negotiations. Since Feb. 8, workers had been picketing at the township buildings on Walbert Avenue and Cedar Crest Boulevard, and locals have shown support by dropping off food.
In addition to negotiations, the Teamsters have been in and out of court with the township over the legality of the strike. A Lehigh County judge granted an injunction that allowed certain employees to be called back to work under a specific set of conditions after the township’s lawyers argued that the work stoppage created a “clear and present danger or threat to the health, safety or welfare of the public.”
The parties negotiated through the weekend and came to an agreement Sunday evening, Taylor said. The union held a vote Monday morning at the Teamsters local office in Whitehall, and members approved the contact by a one-vote margin.
Proposals on hours of work and subcontracting language were the last two items to be negotiated, Taylor said in late February.
“We look forward to the employees’ return and continued service to our residents and businesses,” township Manager Renee Bickel said.