Teachers get shots as state expands list for eligibility

Some city teachers were among the first in line to get vaccinated Monday after state officials expanded eligibility late last week to include essential workers and seniors.

“It’s almost surreal, with the events of 2020, especially in education,” said Ronnie Almonte, a science teacher at Leaders High School in Brooklyn who got his first dose of the Moderna vaccine Monday afternoon.

“It was particularly emotional for me to get this because the people I’ve lost, including friends that were teachers,” he added. “There was very little relief, if any, this year. It just felt like in a lot of ways good days were never going to come again.”

Education Department officials didn’t have an immediate tally of how many city educators have signed up for or received vaccine doses as of Monday.

State officials say there are 870,000 “education workers” across the state now eligible for the vaccine — a category that includes early childhood educators, school bus drivers, afterschool leaders, and some higher education staff.

Almonte heard the news from a colleague Saturday morning that city teachers were now eligible, and signed up for a slot right away through a city portal.

He felt an extra obligation as a science teacher to get vaccinated as soon as he could — and took the opportunity to discuss the science behind the vaccine with his students.

“As a science teacher I thought it was my obligation to point them to the science,” Almonte said.

He walked his students through Pfizer’s vaccine trial data, and analyzed the experiment design with the high schoolers. “And then I kind of dropped on them, ‘Hey, I’m getting vaccinated today,’ “he said.

Almonte said he was lucky to hear about the signup link from a colleague, but wishes there had been earlier and clearer communication from government officials.