Prioritizing teachers causes vaccination debate

Posted April 2021

By Isabelle Donahue

Staff Editor

With limited vaccinations available, some have criticized Oregon’s plan to provide teachers the vaccinations before anyone else, yet others understand the reason behind the decision.

Governor Kate Brown wants as many schools as possible to resume in-person learning by mid-April while the COVID-19 pandemic continues. To make that happen, she plans to have vaccinated all of Oregon’s 100,000 or so school employees before the beginning of April — in the process putting them at the front of the line ahead of the elderly, people with pre-existing health conditions, and other groups of non-medical frontline workers. This decision has sparked controversy within Oregon. After other states seeking to prioritize teacher vaccinations reversed or altered those plans following public backlash, only Oregon’s plans remain unchanged.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends vaccinating older people, people with pre-existing health conditions, and people at a very high risk of exposure first. Brown’s decision directly contradicts those guidelines. Some critics argue that vaccinating teachers ahead of more vulnerable groups violates principles of medical ethics. Others — including teachers — say that vaccinating teachers is not enough by itself to open schools safely.

”Our schools are safe when our community is safe,” said Elizabeth Thiel, president of the Portland Association of Teachers. “Our educators and our students come in and out of schools and go home to families. You can’t have safe schools without safe communities.”

For a brief period in early March, it looked as if Oregon seniors would receive their vaccines at the same time as teachers. But when it became clear the federal government was not going to deliver a promised vaccine shipment, the conflict over teacher vaccinations surged back to the forefront.

The Oregon Education Association represents 44,000 teachers across the state and is one of the most powerful unions in Oregon. Its president, John Larson has nothing against older Oregonians.

“All things being equal, if they weren't being put into that situation -- if they could continue with comprehensive distance learning -- then you probably should prioritize the elderly,” Larson said. “If the governor is going to insist that schools reopen to in-person instruction, then we must insist that they be vaccinated before they do that. They need some modicum of safety in order to feel they can go back and do their jobs without fear.”

Many seniors feel as though their safety is being placed on the backburner, as well as others who would have originally been vaccinated before teachers. Many have been outspokenly against Brown’s decision, saying that it placing a large population at a higher risk than was necessary. Some front-line workers have been surprisingly fine with Brown’s decision, one anonymous person says, “I know that some people are upset with everything going on. But I can’t really say that I am. I get it, you know? Teachers are in enclosed classrooms full of small kids. Classrooms are a breeding ground for diseases, teachers have every right to be concerned.”

Alongside many seniors, some teachers are also feeling uneasy about their new position in the vaccination lines. Some have refused to get the vaccination before all high-risk people in their county are vaccinated. Many are wishing that they could continue distance-teaching until the end of the school year, then they are hoping that more seniors and front line workers will have vaccinated.

”My personal feeling is that seniors and frontline workers who are being exposed should get those vaccines,” said Beyoung Yu, an English teacher at Rosa Parks Elementary School. “I know that digital learning is not as effective as in-person learning. That’s not a debate. But by doing this right now, we are doing it at a risk to the populations we serve.”

And while Yu acknowledges that students of color have been hurt the most by distance learning, and their families the most hurt economically, he doesn’t see vaccinating teachers as the solution. ”If that’s their argument, I would like to see them reach out to those communities,” Yu said. “I don’t see enough of that being done. People are making decisions about Black and Brown lives without involving those Black and Brown lives without including those Black and Brown lives at the table.”

There’s another reason Yu doesn’t want to return to in-person learning yet: kids and their communities. Yu said that many Portland-area schools are outdated and lack proper ventilation, putting students at risk. “Teachers are not the only people in schools, and the vaccine is not approved for children,” Yu said.

Since announcing her decision to start vaccinating school employees two weeks before seniors, Brown and the Oregon Health Authority have both expressed regret over the potential loss of life. Brown also expressed concerns about an increase in youth suicides due to the pandemic: something often talked about, but that is not necessarily supported by data.

“Did the governor actually say that?” asked OSU medical ethicist Courtney Campbell. “[Adolescent suicide] is not an inconsequential matter to be sure, but it’s unclear to me just how sending vaccinated teachers into not a regular classroom setting but a trauma-charged classroom is exactly going to promote student safety.”

It’s a particularly perplexing decision, said Campbell, since there are ways to reopen schools safely: by using social distancing measures to reduce transmission so that public health officials can test, contact trace, and quarantine new cases.

“It would surely be an irresponsible use of scarce resources to use a vaccine for a fatal disease that has killed 400,000-plus Americans, mostly elderly and disproportionately BIPOC, as the means to solve the problem of adolescent suicide attempts,” Campbell said. “We need to ensure that when schools are reopened, it is safe for everyone,” he said, adding that school should “be a haven for education, not for trauma-informed classroom settings.”

The CDC has identified several “distinctive factors” that impact COVID-19 risk for teachers and school staff. Teachers come into close contact with kids and other adults throughout the day, even if schools take pains to maintain social distance. Duration is also a factor. Teachers and school staff are indoors with children for hours at a time, every day. It is also likely that those children may be silent spreaders. According to one recent estimate, one-third of children who have COVID-19 show no symptoms so they’re unlikely to be identified unless schools are doing robust testing. While COVID-19 vaccine development has been astoundingly fast, the process has been slower for children, mainly due to concerns for long-term negative results. The American Academy of Pediatrics has called for kids to be included in vaccine trials, but that largely hasn’t happened yet, though Pfizer has begun testing its vaccine on children age 12 and up. Experts predict the vaccine may not be available to most children in the U.S. until sometime in the next academic year.