Chicago City Wire

Statistics on school staff members receiving vaccinations and refusal rates remain unknown as states and districts fail to record such data. Chicago, Las Vegas and Louisville, Kentucky, are on the list. 

Vaccinations began in mid-February in Chicago but it is still not clear how many of the nearly 40,000 Chicago Public Schools employees have been vaccinated. Teachers in the state were close to striking over COVID-19 safety plans last month

Medical privacy laws remain a hindrance for officials to publicize employees' vaccination information. A Johns Hopkins University analysis published Thursday shows that no state has publicly reported the number of teachers and staff members vaccinated 

The schools will soon require employees to disclose their vaccination status and, eventually, require vaccinations.

Distance learning has not been ruled out despite the availability of a vaccine to teachers. In Philadelphia, a dispute with the teachers union over the state of the school's infrastructure has delayed reopening of schools. Schools there are preparing to launch hybrid learning for students in PreK-2.

Superintendent Nikolai Vitti explained that in Detroit teacher distrust in the health care systems had led to the slow reopening of schools.

“What I’m fearful of is what usually happens in this country,” Vitti said, as reported by U.S News. “Based on what the majority is doing — the majority in this case being white suburban rural districts coming back — the understanding is, ‘Well, everyone’s back, why wouldn’t we be back?’ There needs to be a differentiated, unique intentionality about the communication and effort to bring back our students and other students like ours throughout the country.”

Megan Collins, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Consortium for School-Based Health Solutions noted that increased transparency could influence back-to-school decision making.

"We're seeing a substantial disconnect. There are states not prioritizing teachers for vaccine that are fully open for in-person instruction, and others that are prioritizing teachers for vaccines, but aren’t open at all,” Collins told U.S News. “If states are going to use teacher vaccinations as a part of the process for safely returning to classrooms, it's very important then to be able to communicate that information so people know that teachers are actually getting vaccines.”