Revere, Brockton Secure COVID-19 Vaccines For Teachers, School Staff
REVERE (CBS) - School districts know what they need to do to make sure teachers feel safe enough to get them back to class and that is getting them vaccinated.
"I understand that people are stressed," said Dr. Dianne Kelly, superintendent of schools for the city of Revere, where teachers have been rallying against the return to class.
"Vaccines make me feel a lot safer," one teacher told WBZ-TV during another rally Tuesday.
Now the superintendent is promising that interested school staff will be provided a vaccine. The vaccines will be scheduled by appointment.
"We have 600 people attending the clinic on Friday. And those are all school staff members. Teachers, para-professionals, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, secretaries, custodians, everybody was invited to participate in that," she said.
The idea behind the clinic, that falls on the one-year anniversary Revere schools shut their doors, is that everyone will be vaccinated at least once ahead of the March 22 call back to the classroom.
"Vaccinating our teachers is a high priority," Revere Mayor, Brian Arrigo said.
City leaders say setting up the clinic took months of planning. The first obstacle was waiting for the governor to welcome teachers into the vaccine rollout. The second was securing the doses through the East Boston Neighborhood Health Center, who has access to both a federal and state supply.
"We did not run out of spots so every employee who wanted a vaccine will have one," Dr. Kelly explained.
Brockton schools are following suit, setting up a three-day clinic for school employees made possible through a partnership with the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, opening up scheduling for 3,000 staff members Tuesday morning.
In Marshfield, doses will be set aside for teachers at the fairgrounds.
"We will be taking care of teachers starting this Thursday, March 11 and March 12 and our goal is to do about 800 teachers per day on those two days," Michael Maresco, Marshfield's Town Administrator added.
"We got the schedule links yesterday sent them to our staff and people have been signing up," Marshfield School Superintendent Jeffrey Granatino said.
In Revere, the clinic for school staff will be held at Rumney Park on Friday starting at 1 p.m. The second dose is guaranteed.
On Tuesday, Elementary and Secondary Education Commissioner Jeffrey Riley announced deadlines for elementary and middle schools to return to in-person learning. Elementary schools will be required to have "full-time, in-person instruction five days per week" starting Monday, April 5. Middle schools will have to do the same by Wednesday, April 28.
Visit Mass.Gov/CovidVaccine to find out when you're eligible and to book an appointment.