Vaccination for Pittsburgh teachers to start next week, details still uncertain

Following Gov. Tom Wolf’s announcement this week that teachers would be moved first in line to receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, Pittsburgh schools are poised to begin inoculating teachers next week.

“The vaccinations of our teachers and school staff will add an additional layer of mitigation strategies we already have in place to welcome our students and staff back for hybrid learning,” Superintendent Anthony Hamlet said Friday.

The district had previously been collaborating with UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh to plan for vaccine distribution, and had even hosted an hour-long town hall with UPMC last week to answer questions and address concerns about vaccines with the teachers, who were previously in Phase 1B. Rodney Necciai, assistant superintendent for the district who is coordinating the vaccine effort, said those preparations are now on hold.

The doses will come in two waves, with certain educators receiving priority starting next week. The goal is to have most Pennsylvania educators and school staff inoculated by the end of March, Wolf said.

In line with the state’s guidelines, Pittsburgh teachers in the early grades PreK-5, special education teachers and elementary school bus drivers will be vaccinated in the first wave of doses. A concrete date has yet to be set, Necciai said, but it is anticipated the vaccinations will start between March 10 and 13. Necciai said it is still unclear how many doses will be included in the intermediate unit’s first allocation.

“It’s a very fluid situation,” Necciai said, “but we’re hoping very soon to have those details ironed out.”

The district had previously delayed a return to in-person instruction, hoping to increase teachers’ chances of getting the vaccine first – but quickly reversed course and announced a phased hybrid approach to start in April.

The district’s approach brings students back in waves, based on need. The first cohort of students to return April 6, “Support Category 4,” will include students who’ve struggled most with online learning, along with kindergarten and pre-K students. Hamlet said this group amounts to 4,786 students. An additional 5,215 students in “Support Category 3” will follow Monday, April 26.

Hamlet said the district will evaluate “how smoothly that goes” when making plans to bring back the rest of the district’s 10,000 students in Support Categories 1 and 2, taking into consideration the number of families who opt to stick with remote learning and the capacity for social distancing within school buildings. Families were notified this week of which category their students fell into.

The majority of teachers are expected to return to buildings with the first cohort, Hamlet said. In the meantime, past surveys suggest that around 2,800 of the district’s 4,600 teachers, faculty and staff are interested in receiving a covid vaccine through Pittsburgh Public Schools.

Around 200 of the district’s employees have already been vaccinated as part of Phase 1A – including school nurses, psychologists and occupational therapists. Vaccination is not mandatory for any teachers or staff, Hamlet said.

Necciai said the district is “hopeful” that all teachers who want a vaccine can get one by the time the second student cohort is back in classrooms. The district doesn’t have an exact date of when the next wave of vaccine will be arriving, only that it’s expected within two to four weeks of the first wave.

Despite the uncertainty in how clinics will work or when they are to begin, leaders still expressed relief that the vaccine was on its way.

“We appreciate the Biden administration, Gov. Wolf, for prioritizing our educators so we can really get our students back into school,” Hamlet said. “People had some trepidation about coming back. They had fears, they had preexisting medical conditions, they’re taking care of fragile, elderly parents, as well. This gives another layer of mitigation strategy to support us coming back in a healthy way.”