Fort Worth teachers on edge as they wait for COVID vaccine amid school staffing crisis
On Jan. 23, Shelley DeHart opened her email to find a message telling her she had an appointment to get the first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Nearly every teacher and staff member at Arlington Heights High School, where DeHart teaches English, wants the shot, and most have signed up to get it, she said. DeHart, 49, isn’t sure how she qualified for the vaccine. She doesn’t have an underlying condition that would make her eligible. But she feels lucky to get it.
Apart from DeHart and one other teacher, everyone in her building is still waiting for the vaccination and going to school each day, hoping they don’t catch the coronavirus.
In daily group chats with other teachers, DeHart can see the ways teachers handle the situation. Younger teachers are a bit more willing to circulate around their classrooms. Older teachers are more inclined to stick close to their desks. But every teacher she talks to seems anxious, she said. Now that a COVID-19 vaccine is being distributed, nearly all her colleagues wonder when it will be their turn.
“Everybody wants the vaccine,” DeHart said. “Everybody wants it as quickly as possible.”
In the weeks after Christmas, the number of Texas school staff who tested positive for COVID-19 climbed to an all-time high, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Although the numbers have declined since then, teachers in the Fort Worth school district remain on edge, and schools are left to deal with staffing issues when teachers become ill or have to quarantine.
But unlike other states, Texas health officials haven’t included teachers in the state’s vaccine distribution plan. That means it is unclear when teachers will be eligible to receive the shot.
School leaders want vaccines for teachers
During the week of Jan. 4-10, 5,406 school workers across Texas were positive for COVID-19, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services’ public schools dashboard. That was the largest number of positive cases among school employees since the beginning of the pandemic. The total fell to 3,290 the week of Jan. 18-24.
In December, Fort Worth Superintendent Kent Scribner wrote to Gov. Greg Abbott on behalf of the Texas Urban Council of Superintendents asking that teachers and principals be included in the first round of vaccine distribution. Scribner also asked that the state prioritize educators who work in cities and counties where infection rates are highest.
“Our campus-based educators are on the front lines every day,” Scribner wrote. “They are teaching in person, interacting with children and other adults. And, while they are utilizing best practices in safety protocols, they are still at a much higher risk of contracting COVID than those of us who can work in a closed office setting or from home.”
Later that month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended states include teachers, school support staff and day care workers early in vaccine distribution, alongside other front-line workers like police, firefighters and grocery store workers.
On his second day in office, President Joe Biden unveiled a plan designed to ramp up efforts to combat the pandemic. The plan encouraged states to begin vaccinating teachers and other front-line workers.
But so far, Texas hasn’t made the vaccine available to teachers as a group, although teachers who qualify for some other reason are eligible to receive the shot. Under Texas’ vaccine protocol, only residents in groups 1a and 1b are eligible to receive the vaccine. Those groups include health care workers, including school nurses; nursing home residents; those age 65 and over; and those with underlying health conditions. State health officials estimate those two groups include about 13 million Texans.
Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said the state’s Expert Vaccine Allocation Panel hasn’t determined who will be included in the next group.
COVID-19 creates school staffing issues
Mike Steinert, the district’s assistant superintendent of student support services, said many of the district’s school nurses have already received the second dose of the vaccine, and others will soon.
District leaders would like to see state health officials include teachers in the next round of the state’s vaccination protocol, he said.
“They’re in front of kids every day, and as far as we’re concerned, they’re front-line workers,” he said.
Having all teachers and school staff vaccinated wouldn’t allow an immediate return to normal, since students still wouldn’t necessarily have access to the vaccine. But it would go a long way toward alleviating school staffing headaches that have plagued school districts across the country, Steinert said.
When teachers come in contact with someone who later tests positive for COVID-19, the district’s protocol requires them to quarantine for 10 days. That requirement, combined with a shortage of substitute teachers, has led to staffing issues. Teachers double up classes to cover for absent colleagues, and school leaders draft librarians, reading coaches and other support staff to watch classes for teachers who have the virus or are quarantining.
But once all teachers are vaccinated, they might not have to quarantine after coming in contact with someone who tests positive for the virus, Steinert said. That would allow the district to send teachers home only if they test positive for the virus or have symptoms, which would result in fewer teacher absences and fewer classes that needed to be covered, he said.
Sarah Russell, a P.E. teacher at West Handley Elementary School, said so many teachers are out on quarantine that school administrators have had to draft every other school staff member to cover for absent teachers. Russell’s P.E. classes are large enough that, under state guidelines, she should have a teaching assistant. But most days, every teaching assistant has to cover an absent teacher’s class, so she’s left on her own, she said.
Russell said she applied to receive the vaccine a month ago. She hasn’t heard anything. It’s frustrating seeing other people getting the vaccine before she does, she said. She understands the need to vaccinate elderly people and those with underlying conditions first, she said, but she thinks teachers should be near the front of the line, as well.
As a P.E. teacher, Russell comes in contact with every student in her school at least once a week. She sees more than 200 students a day. That puts her at even greater risk than classroom teachers, she said.
“I’m terrified all the time,” Russell said. “Just constantly waiting.”
Arkansas teachers got the vaccine early
Other states have adopted different strategies for vaccine distribution. Some, including Arkansas, place teachers near the front of the line. Arkansas began offering the first round of the vaccine to teachers on Jan. 18.
Jennifer Worthy, a fifth-grade teacher in Springdale, Arkansas, said the process for getting her vaccine went remarkably smoothly. Shortly after Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced teachers would be eligible for the vaccine, Worthy got an email from her school district explaining when and where teachers could get the shot, along with a link to a signup sheet for appointments, she said.
“They took care of all the hard part for us,” Worthy said.
A few days later, Worthy drove to a nearby high school where school nurses had set up a site to administer the Pfizer vaccine to teachers in the district. She waited in line for about 10 minutes before getting the shot, she said.
Springdale schools haven’t been hit as hard by the virus as many other districts, Worthy said. A few teachers have had to stay home after getting sick or coming in contact with someone who had the virus, but it doesn’t happen regularly, she said. Having early access to the vaccine has made her feel better about going into her classroom every day, she said, especially since nearly all of her students are at school in person.
“I definitely feel a lot more confident and comfortable with it,” she said.
‘Back to normal’
DeHart, the Arlington Heights teacher, said the virus has already made its way into her family. One morning in January, while she was getting ready for school, DeHart told her daughter she’d put on too much perfume. Her daughter, a student at Arlington Heights, said she couldn’t smell it at all.
So DeHart had her tested for the virus. When the test came back positive, DeHart and her two daughters stayed home from school for two weeks to quarantine. Her daughter had a low-grade fever and bad headaches, she said, but no congestion. After several days, she began to feel better. DeHart and her other daughter never caught the virus.
DeHart and her daughter were hardly the first in their school to have to quarantine. One week, nearly every administrator on campus was out, having either caught the virus or come in contact with someone who had. In one of DeHart’s classes, three boys sat next to each other on a Monday, safely spaced apart and behind plastic dividers. By the next Monday, all three had come down with COVID-19, she said.
On Jan. 27, DeHart received the first round of the vaccine. She has an appointment in a few weeks to get the second shot. Being vaccinated against the virus gives her a great deal of peace of mind, she said. She’s looking forward to the day when she and all her colleagues can walk into their classrooms and do their jobs without worrying about catching a deadly disease.
“We’re all done with it,” she said. “We all want life to get back to normal.”
