Georgia's school superintendents discuss COVID-19 vaccine rollout

ATLANTA - State leaders and 13 school superintendents from across Georgia met virtually to talk about the vaccine rollout for teachers on Thursday.

Governor Brian Kemp announced last month, teachers will be eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine starting March 8. Districts have since been working with health officials to put together a rollout plan.

However, the plan to vaccinate teachers will likely look different for each district. Some districts are working with local health departments while others are holding vaccine clinics on school campuses.

"It really made sense to get this at the most localized level that we could to marry up a school district with a provider," said Ryan Loke, Deputy Chief Operating Officer to Governor Brian Kemp.

Kemp announced Wednesday, the first shipment of the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine will be allocated to Georgia teachers. That's about 83,000 doses that will be set aside for teachers.

"As of last night, we had 136,090 staff who indicated they wanted to receive the vaccine," said Loke.

Many school districts will begin teacher vaccinations next week or weekend. Many districts said they will also give teachers recovery time to account for any mild side effects from the vaccine.

Atlanta Public School Superintendent Dr. Lisa Herring said her district is putting a mass vaccination site.

"We have also secured, because of our size, over 200 medical and nonmedical volunteers to help staff our event," said Herring.

Meanwhile, other districts like Henry County plan to hold on-campus vaccination clinics with the help of school nurses.

"We applied to be a closed point of distribution, so we have gone through all of the processes to actually be the administrator of the vaccine for our school system," explained Dr. Mary Elizabeth Davis, superintendent for Henry County Schools.

State leaders are also working to deal with vaccine hesitancy. State School Superintendent Richard Woods said local school districts will have to help with that message.

"The biggest way we can highlight that is at the local level, for local districts to showcase this vaccine," said Woods.

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