Tell the Baker administration to approve a plan to vaccinate Massachusetts educators and staff
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Your Action Will Help Get State Approval for Our Plan to Vaccinate Massachusetts Educators and Other School Workers
Thousands of educators, school and college employees and students are teaching and learning in person every day at schools and higher education institutions across the Commonwealth without full protection and without any idea when the state will start scheduling their COVID-19 vaccinations. And unlike the situation in 32 other states, higher ed faculty and staff are not included with school employees in Phase 2.
While we know that vaccination will not solve all of the health concerns associated with COVID-19, we know that we can do more to keep school employees, their students and the people in their communities safer. With each day, there is more and more support for vaccinating educators.
The state has no concrete plan to vaccinate educators, but we do! Labor unions representing educators and school staff, firefighters, nurses and library workers have teamed up on a plan that would facilitate the rapid, efficient and local vaccination of school employees, starting with a pilot program in up to 20 communities with some of the highest transmission rates. The turnkey program proposed by the unions is designed to quickly scale up across the Commonwealth as soon the pilot program is complete.
Called the Last Mile Vaccine Delivery Program, the plan is now before the state Department of Public Health.
- Local firefighters and EMTs would administer the vaccine in school buildings across the state and a private medical distribution company would handle all of the logistics.
- Vaccinations for educators and other school employees would begin in February and would be scaled up beyond the pilot communities as more vaccine doses become available.
- Educators would not be moved ahead of any other groups but could be vaccinated at the same time as others in Phase 2.
We need all hands on deck – every available voice – to call on the Baker administration with these two simple demands:
- Approve the Last Mile Vaccine Delivery Program so it can begin right away.
- Make higher education employees and library workers eligible for vaccination in Phase 2 with preK-12 public school staff, integrating them into the Last Mile program and the program on their own campuses.
Please urge Governor Charlie Baker, Health and Human Services Secretary Marylou Sudders and Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel to take immediate action to make our schools safer for students, families and communities, along with Massachusetts educators!
This is a joint effort of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts, the Professional Fire Fighters of Massachusetts, the Boston Teachers Union, the Massachusetts Nurses Association, Service Employees International Union Local 888, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1459, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Council 93 and the United Steelworkers.
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