MA Teachers Association Backs CDC Guidance For Teacher Vaccines

The Massachusetts Teachers Association is doubling down on its call for teachers and school staff to be vaccinated as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention add educators to its list of recommendations of high priority groups to receive the vaccine.

On Friday, the CDC recommended teachers and school staff be vaccinated as soon as supply allows.

"Vaccinating teachers and school staff can be considered one layer of mitigation and protection for staff and students," the CDC said in its announcement. The recommendation was coupled with a warning that vaccinations shouldn't be a condition for reopening in-person learning. "Even after teachers and staff are vaccinated, schools need to continue mitigation measures for the foreseeable future, including requiring masks in schools and physical distancing."

The MTA has been advocating for Massachusetts to add teachers to the priority group receiving vaccines in the first few phases of the rollout.

"We have submitted our own union-created plan to the Department of Public Health that would facilitate the rapid vaccination of school staff by firefighters and EMTs in their own communities," the MTA said in a statement, "Unions are playing an important role in making pandemic education work, whether remote, hybrid or fully in person. We have a mandate to make sure our schools are safe for our members and their students. We have been a driving force behind making sure that school districts make the necessary repairs to ventilation systems and implement other safety measures."

Massachusetts is in Phase 2 of its vaccination plan, which allows people over 75 to be vaccinated. Under Phase 1, health care workers, first responders, nursing home and long term care facility staff were eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine.