Dear editor,

On Feb. 12, the Mountain Echo printed an article titled, “School district plans for staff vaccination.” The article talks about the fact that the board originally agreed to not send students back to school until the majority of the staff members had been vaccinated. This plan held up for less than a month and the school board met again and decided to send students back hybrid, without any staff members being vaccinated.

Weeks passed and still no vaccinations were rolled out for the staff, and the school board decided to bring students back full time. I understand that a five day a week school schedule is beneficial to everyone for many reasons. I agree that being in person is much better than being at home; however, as the virus continues to circulate, teachers have not had access to the vaccine and are getting sick. 

Being back in school now is definitely different then it has ever been before. Students are pulled out of school in the middle of the day and told that they have been exposed to someone with COVID-19 and asked to quarantine. Vaccinating teachers would cut down on the spread significantly. It would also decrease the number of students who have to be quarantined and reduce teacher absences.

On Thursday, March 18, teachers were off for a day to get their COVID-19 vaccines.  However, many people have a slight sickness or reaction to the vaccine, so they will have to take off work because of it, causing delays in learning.  If the district would have waited to go back, staff members could have had time to recover and not be rushed back to school.  The school district should have stuck with the original plan to vaccinate first and then come back to school. There would be less cases among staff or students and teachers with high risk factors would not have to return to school and put themselves in danger. 

Sincerely,

Olivia McMinn