GA teachers have been pushing Kemp for COVID vaccine eligibility. It may pay off soon

Educators have pressed Georgia officials for months to be included in the current round of COVID-19 vaccinations as schools continue face-to-face instruction or make plans to reopen classrooms.

State officials have countered that the state’s current volume of coronavirus vaccines make it impossible to include Georgia’s more than 100,000 teachers, although there are indications that could soon change.

Gov. Brian Kemp and state health officials have not released a time frame for when vaccine eligibility will be expanded to the next group of Georgians, which, according to state planning documents, includes teachers, grocery store employees and other “frontline” workers.

Educators are pushing for Kemp to expand vaccine eligibility to teachers. It is imperative to get educators vaccinated in order to help reopen and keep open schools, according to Baldwin County School District Superintendent Dr. Noris Price.

“I think that we should have been in that first phase. I understand that the rationale was that we didn’t have enough vaccines,” Price said. “We’ve sent letters to our professional organizations, superintendents associations, asking the governor to consider moving educators up to Phase 1A+.”

Price said that the district was able to safely open schools back in August and so far has not had to send a lot of kids home because of the safety protocols that her and her task force put in place..

Despite having students and teachers return to school in August, she said some of the teachers were and still are worried about their health and the health of their students with no vaccines available to them.

Why weren’t teachers in the first phase?

In early February, Kemp said that once additional doses of the vaccine were made available, both he and Georgia Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey would consider expanding eligibility. Kemp’s statement came after the Atlanta Board of Education called for the expansion of Phase 1A+ to include teachers. Kemp said he agreed teachers should be eligible, but Georgia needed to receive a higher volume of vaccines from pharmaceutical companies.

“The truth is the current vaccine supply is not enough to expand the 1A+ vaccination criteria,” Kemp said earlier this month. “While we have made extraordinary progress… we have long, tough journey ahead of us.”

Kemp said expanding eligibility to teachers would make the supply problem “even worse” as seniors have struggled to make appointments for first and second doses of the vaccine.

That could change soon: the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Wednesday Kemp could expand the eligibility to include teachers this week. The AJC reported Kemp is also expected to expand eligibility to Georgians with higher health risks, as well as residents deemed “critical employees.”

Price said that once the vaccines become available for educators in Georgia that local school districts would likely not require teachers to get vaccinated; the hope is that teachers will want the vaccine.

“[The Baldwin County School District] decided that we will not require it. We will strongly encourage it,” Price said. “The key here for me is if I strongly encouraged them, I got to make sure that I have provided them with the information that they need to make an informed decision.”

Educating the educators could be key

But even if teachers become eligible, there is still some hesitancy. According to a recent survey from Baldwin County Schools, only 52% of district employees would take the vaccine when available.

Price said many concerns from staff pointed to potential misinformation or lack of knowledge about the vaccine. Price set up a pair of webinars to better educate her employees on the ins and outs of the vaccine.

The first webinar was led by the director of the North Central Health District, Dr. Rene Haynes and the second by Dr. Matt Linam with Emory University and epidemiologist for Scottish Rite Hospital.

“Just educating them based on the trials that have been conducted on these two vaccines that are currently available to us and those two presentations answered a lot of those questions. Those two webinars were excellent,” Price said. “I’ve also been working with our local health department and with local hospitals to develop a plan so that when we are ready to vaccinate our educators, we have a plan and are ready to go.”

Lisa Morgan, a kindergarten teacher and president of the Georgia Association of Educators, has been one of the leading educators in the state pushing for Kemp and others to make the move to get teachers vaccinated as soon as possible. Morgan said that it seems state did not have the infrastructure in place to properly vaccinate Georgians.

“The issue is Georgians overall are not being vaccinated because the process is not being conducted in an efficient manner,” Morgan said. “Vaccination is the most promising thing we have, and that it is the best way for educators to protect themselves and their family.”

This story was originally published February 25, 2021 at 5:00 AM.