Justice addresses rumors and concerns about educator vaccine status
CHARLESTON -- Gov. Jim Justice said Friday that any rumor that teachers and school service personnel are not top priority for COVID-19 vaccines was wrong, encouraging educators to pre-register in the state's vaccine scheduling system.
"I want every teacher and every school service personnel to listen to me: absolutely if you don't have your shot and you want a shot, you can register on Everbridge right now," Justice said during his coronavirus briefing Friday from the Capitol. "Being told that you can't register on Everbridge is ridiculous. And you will be treated as essential."
Vaccinations for teachers and school service personnel began Jan. 6, focused on educators and staff age 50 and older first, then on teachers and staff younger than age 50. On Monday, the state rolled out an online vaccine pre-registration system managed by Everbridge, a tech company that specializes in push alerts by email, text, and automated phone calls.
The Department of Education said in a press release Thursday night that all school employees age 50 and older who requested a COVID-19 vaccine will have received it by the end of the day Friday. The department issued a survey at the beginning of the year to school employees to determine who would be interested in a vaccine.
Those who expressed no interest at the time, but want vaccinated now will have to pre-register with the Everbridge system at vaccinate.wv.gov. Those school employees are still considered essential workers and will receive priority access to vaccinations as soon as doses are available. Those school employees will be contacted through the Everbridge system with an appointment.
"West Virginia, like the rest of the country, is working hard to administer vaccines as the country faces significant supply issues," the Department of Education said in a statement. "West Virginia is the only state in the country to prioritize school employees as essential moving them to elevated status to receive the vaccine."
Dale Lee, president of the West Virginia Education Association, accused the state of breaking its promises to teachers and school service personnel to prioritize them for vaccines. He said requiring school employees to pre-register online instead of directly providing the vaccines will put educators and students at risk.
"The state has broken its promise in prioritizing public school employees in the vaccination rollout by stopping delivery of vaccines to schools," Lee said in a statement Friday. "It is unclear how educators are a priority by checking the box on a website where the public registers for a waiting list for the vaccine."
Both the WVEA and the West Virginia Chapter of the American Federation of Teachers have a pending lawsuit against the state Board of Education and Department of Education over its directives to counties to open up Pre-K, elementary and middle schools for in-person learning no matter the color on the Department of Health and Human Resources County Alert System Map.
Counties can move to blended-hybrid models until their school employees receive both doses of either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. Lee said quickly vaccinating school employees is key to having safe schools.
"Educators were told they were being prioritized for vaccinations, and in fact that was a standard for reopening schools," Lee said. "Public school employees must be a priority for safe teaching and learning. Our educators have done extraordinary work providing quality instruction while keeping our students safe. Promises must be kept."
Justice said Friday that pre-registering online in no way moves school employees to the end of the virtual line. It's simply a more efficient way of being able to prioritize them.
"You can absolutely pre-register as essential and get right in the system and get your shots," Justice said. "For those who are telling you that you can't do that, they're not telling you the truth."
Justice said school employees who already received their first dose do not need to pre-register, and those employees will receive their second dose at the same locations they received the first dose.
After hearing Justice on Friday's briefing, Lee tweeted out a statement of thanks for clearing up the confusion over the pre-registration process.
"The WVEA is proud to fight for the safety of our educators, students and families," Lee said. "We are pleased the governor confirmed that educators are a priority, and we will hold him to that promise. We will do what we need to prioritize all our educators who want to be vaccinated."
(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)