Educators hopeful to receive covid vaccines

School officials continue to adapt to changes created by pandemic restrictions.

Educators anticipate increased numbers of absences and quarantines during January.

“We do expect this is going to be the biggest time,” Kevin Ramey, assistant superintendent, told School Board members about numbers of absences after the Christmas break. “We appreciate your approving the leave.”

Ramey said there were 15 students and staff members in quarantine and 106 students absent last week.

“We had some students and families test positive over Christmas break but we didn’t get the information,” Ramey said. “We’re still working through some of that and evaluating what that will do to our numbers. There are several factors we look at.”

Ramey also told board members he and superintendent Keith Martin are in communication with officials with the state Department of Education to learn more about the promised covid-19 vaccinations for educational staff.

“It’s a hot-button topic. Nurses were in the 1A group so had the option of receiving the vaccine,” he said. “We’re in the 1B group, along with the rest of our staff.

“We expect to have more information soon. Vaccines are being rolled out through pharmacies. We’ll have to work with pharmacies.”

“We realize there’s such a massive scope state wide —we’ve been paying attention to that, to what that might look like.

“We hope to get something to school community about what it will look like soon,” he continued, adding that the entire process involved with the covid vaccination is time consuming, involves much paper work and follows federal guidelines.