Student Vaccination Events Planned At Lake County High Schools

HIGHLAND PARK, IL — Township High School District 113 administrators announced plans to organize a pilot program to provide vaccination clinics for high school students starting later this month.

All students aged 16 or older at Deerfield, Highland Park, North Chicago, Zion-Benton and Waukegan high schools will be eligible for the event, which is being held in partnership with Walgreens and Passport Health, administrators said.

The same local high school districts were among the seven Lake County districts that partnered to vaccinate staff in late January in an event held at Deerfield High School.

This time, District 113 Superintendent Bruce Law said, each high school will host their own events, with Passport Health staff administering jabs of Pfizer vaccine.

"District 113, however, is serving as the pilot program for all the logistics and I.T. and the communications we have to get out, and in fact we met just today with our partner districts and Passport Health to start thinking through this and planning how this will go," Law said.

The superintendent told his board Monday that district officials had first learned about the opportunity the prior Thursday.

"It is, of course, a testament to District 113 that we are serving as a pilot," he said. "If Passport Health works with us and learns from this, it will benefit not only these three districts, but other school districts that Passport Health works with."

Law said district officials would do everything they could to ensure that everyone who is eligible for a vaccine shows up.

"It's important, of course, to our seniors who are graduating and who are going to colleges, some of which — maybe even more and more of which — are going to require vaccination," he said.

Law noted that Pfizer recently filed for emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to administer its COVID-19 vaccine to children aged 12 to 15. That opens up the possibility of all high schoolers eligible to be inoculated against the coronavirus by the start of the 2021-22 school year.

A total of 2,340 District 113 students are old enough to qualify, with seven just turning 16 the week before the scheduled clinic.

Board President Jodi Shapira said it was an amazing opportunity to help students at other schools secure doses, since everyone benefits from more vaccinations.

"Every shot in the arm of someone in our community is a great thing for our community. And you sit there thinking, 'These could be our students that are lifeguards at our pools. These are students who are working at some of our fast food places. These are students who are going to be our camp counselors. These are our students who are going to be babysitters,'" Shapira said.

"We are all part of the same community of Lake County. Our kids play basketball, play soccer, play this, that and the other with students from Waukegan and Zion-Benton and all of those things," she added. "So it's wonderful that we get to expand our bubble, shall we say."

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For the upcoming vaccination clinic, students under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Students 18 and older are able to provide consent themselves.

Administrators plan to send out more information later this week along with a link to schedule doses. Sign up will be open until April 21.

First dose clinics are tentatively planned for a pair of Fridays — April 30 and May 21 — or a pair of Mondays — May 3 and May 24. In both options, vaccination appointments will be scheduled between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m.

The superintendent said administrators were working through all the logistical issues to prepare for the clinics. He said he expected to return for final board approval of the plan on April 26.

"We're on it," Law said. "And this is another step toward normal"