SLO County begins vaccinating teachers, child care workers

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. -- San Luis Obispo County began its efforts to vaccinate teachers and child care workers starting Monday.

"We are very excited because education employees are being vaccinated today across the county at both the Arroyo Grande and Paso Robles sites," said Dr. James Brescia, San Luis Obispo County Superintendent of Schools. "Between the childcare workforce and education workforce, about 640 individuals are being vaccinated."

Last week, Public Health Officer Dr. Penny Borenstein announced the county will start to allocate 10 percent of its vaccines each week to workers in the education and child care sectors.

“We are excited to begin vaccinating our community’s educators, including many who have been providing dedicated in-person care throughout the pandemic,” said Borenstein. “The COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective, and it’s one of the best tools we have to end this pandemic.”

According to the County, vaccine distribution will be managed by the San Luis Obispo County Office of Education and Child Care Planning Council.

"They were prioritized based on their health risks and exposure level depending upon the individuals they serve," said Brescia. "Each employer prioritized their employees based on risk factors. Those individuals either called us, or we received a list from the individual employer, and then they were scheduled."

Eligible individuals will be contacted directly by their employer to schedule an appointment.

Those workers will not schedule appointments directly through the County’s website or Phone Assistance Center.

“This is an important first step in vaccinating the many people who care for our students,” said Brescia. “I appreciate the collaborative work of the local Vaccine Task Force in making this a reality and I encourage all teachers, school staff and child care workers who have questions about when and how to get the vaccine to talk with your employer for more information.”

The Lucia Mar Unified School District was one of many that had teachers receiving first vaccine doses on Monday.

"We are super excited for the educational community as a whole, especially for Team Lucia Mar members," said Jennifer Handy, Lucia Mar Assistant Superintendent/Human Resources. "We've been preparing for this day. We've found out from our employees who is interested in the vaccinations, so the moment they gave us an allotment, we were able to communicate with them and get them scheduled."

Handy said Lucia Mar is making sure those who are eligible will receive their vaccinations first.

"We prioritized by those who were in-person, so our special educators have been serving students with disabilities since October, so they received the priority, and then we'll continue on with educators and staff as a whole who are supporting students in person," said Handy. "Focusing on those who are in-person, and then also considering those who have health concerns that have been expressed, and making sure those who are in-person with students first gets vaccinated, and we'll continue on after that."

Lucia Mar has about 2,000 staff members. About half are teachers.

This week, Lucia Mar has been alloted 112 doses from the Public Health Department.

"They've been ready," said Cody King, Lucia Mar Unified Teacher Association president. "We've been communicating with the County Public Health Office to say that we're ready and we need it to resume our in-person services. This is a good step towards getting kids back in class and after teachers are vaccinated and other work groups are able to get vaccinated, and it becomes accessible to families, that's when we can look more normal."

King added teachers are eager to receive the vaccine, especially those who might have vulnerabilities.

"We do have members who have risk factors that are going back unvaccinated, so just the timing of that is primary concern," said King.

"It's not available to everybody right now," said King. "Everybody will get it at some point. We need to be patient until we get vaccinated, and until then, we just really need to follow all the safety standards, mask standards, and everything else we can do short of a vaccine to stay safe in the classrooms."

For addition information on San Luis Obispo County vaccination efforts, visit RecoverSLO.org/Vaccine.