By Madison Haller
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
As schools throughout Maryland begin opening this month, teachers are debating whether they should get the coronavirus vaccine before stepping back into the classroom.
Teachers have been given the option to receive their choice of the COVID-19 vaccination before teaching in person again, though it is not a requirement.
“Some teachers do [feel ready to go back to school] and they are ready to go back with or without the vaccine,” said Cindy Sexton, the president of the Teachers Association in Baltimore County. “Others are very concerned about the safety of themselves and the health of the building.”
According to Sexton, teachers in Baltimore County have a variety of concerns with the vaccine itself as well as how safe the schools will be. For example, she said teachers want to know more about the air circulation of each room.
In addition, there are teachers who object to getting the vaccine out of health concerns, religious beliefs and uncertainty for the safety of pregnant women, Sexton said.
For Baltimore County, the biggest concern is getting the vaccine to teachers who want it in a timely manner.
“Montgomery County has gotten seemingly more [vaccinations] than Baltimore County has gotten so it seems to be inconsistent and that’s a concern as well,” Sexton said.
Sexton said there is also concern over the tier system the state is using to determine who is eligible for the vaccine. Some teachers are concerned, Sexton said, that the state has already moved into stage 1C even though elderly residents and others who were eligible for the shot in earlier stages have still not received their vaccine.
In Washington County, teachers and staff were asked to complete a Google Form stating whether they wanted the vaccine. The form helped school officials reserve the necessary number of vaccines.
“Personally, I believe our county is doing a great job taking precautions and making sure we are prepared and safe,” said Mary Kercheval, a second-grade teacher from Washington County.
“Teachers are being extra cautious because they want this to work,” Kercheval said.
Education staff has long awaited the return of students and are following every precaution set in place to have a successful outcome, Kercheval said.
Kercheval said that when students were brought back last fall it may have been too soon, causing schools to once again close their doors.
“Numbers were getting higher and higher with no vaccine in the future,” Kercheval said. “But now with teachers being vaccinated, community members getting vaccinated, I think that it is time.”
Maryland is distributing vaccines based on priority, considering the risks of exposure certain groups have with COVID-19.
Currently, Maryland is still within tier 1 of the vaccination process, which is split into three groups: 1A, 1B and 1C. Education staff, including K-12 teachers, are included in the 1B subcategory. While Maryland is now in the 1C category, the vaccination process allows all groups before it to continue being vaccinated.
“It is not thought generally that all teachers need to be vaccinated before school reopens,” said Dr. Clifford Mitchell, the director of the Environmental Health Bureau in the state Department of Health. “Clearly there are advantages to vaccination, but the guidance that the department, the CDC, [and] the state have all developed along with the State Department of Education is designed to promote and preserve safe reopening and operations of schools even in the absence of universal vaccination.”
Besides vaccinations, schools will follow many precautions, such as wearing face masks, physical distancing, hand-washing, and better air circulation within classrooms, Mitchell said. These precautions as well as many more are just one small part of the effort to teach students face-to-face.
In order to achieve this, Maryland has been working closely with the CDC to ensure the safest practices among staff and students, Mitchell said.
“Traditionally, and with good reason, the Department of Health works closely with the CDC and other states because one of the things we want to do is take advantage of the best medical evidence, the best science, the best public health science when we develop policies,” Mitchell said. “We look to the CDC not only for science leadership and consensus building but also because they get a lot of input from across the country.”
Efforts to inform the public and vaccinate as many people as possible have originated from the aid between places such as the CDC, Maryland’s Department of Health, and the Department of Education.
Alison Perkins-Cohen, Baltimore schools chief of staff, said that city schools received help from a partnership with the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins, which sent out 6,400 vaccine invitations in city school teachers. So far, 2,600 vaccines have been claimed by education staff with more on the way, Perkins-Cohen said.
Perkins-Cohen also said that city schools were receiving help from convention centers and local pharmacies in this process, not only to get the vaccine but to get school staff and students tested as soon as an outbreak is suspected.
While every preventative measure is being taken to open schools in Maryland, the goal has always been to keep every member of the public safe while doing so.
“TABCO’s [Teacher’s Association of Baltimore County] position from the very beginning of this pandemic has been for a safe and sustained reopening based on the CDC guidelines,” said Sexton. “So, it’s great that our numbers in Baltimore County have gone down and continue to go down. We just now need to make sure that there’s a health and safety checklist that each school is supposed to go through daily or every other day to make sure that strategies are continuing to be followed to keep school’s staff and students safe and healthy.”