'Back To The Classroom': NJ Teachers Now Getting COVID Vaccines

NEW JERSEY — After a whirlwind week with shifting eligibility dates, educators throughout the Garden State started received inoculations this weekend. And for most, it was another big step toward reclaiming pre-COVID-19 lives.

New Jersey Department of Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli joined Gov. Phil Murphy this weekend to watch the first few educators in the state receive their vaccinations to kick off the eligibility period for teachers, support staff and child care professionals.

After initially refusing to move up the timetable for teachers, Murphy and the state Department of Health reversed the course over the weekend. Now, they can get immunized against COVID-19.

“When I see the teachers, I think about the kids,” Persichilli said during a Saturday visit to the Rowan College of South Jersey COVID-19 Mega-Vaccination Site in Deptford Township. “They have to get back to school — the social aspects of school and the learning. I am always concerned about these kids being left behind."

Murphy is expected to address the vaccine expansion during his 1 p.m. news conference Monday. Read more: WATCH LIVE: Gov. Murphy Issues NJ Coronavirus, Vaccines Update

Saturday's vaccinations marked the end of an eventful week in the fight against the global pandemic as the advent of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine brought new inoculations sites at CVS, Rite Aid, Weis and Wegmans online. It also sped up the deployment of inoculations for state educators.

Read more:

• Where To Get The Coronavirus Vaccine In New Jersey
  
• Weis Markets Offering COVID-19 Vaccinations In NJ: See Where
• Wegmans Begins COVID Vaccinations: Where, When, Who's Eligible
• CVS Expands COVID Vaccination Sites To 163 NJ Locations

Initially, Murphy announced teachers would be able to receive the vaccine on March 15. Then a day later, President Joe Biden implored that the timetable be moved up.

“Let’s treat in-person learning like an essential service that it is,” Biden said Tuesday. “And that means getting essential workers who provide that service, educators, school staff, child care workers, get them vaccinated immediately. They’re essential workers.”

It wasn't quite immediately in New Jersey, and during his Wednesday briefing, Murphy said teachers would not be jumping the line.

"You can't just say, 'OK, how many teachers are there in the state, and say that that's the group that's coming online,'" Murphy said. "There are a lot of teachers like a lot of us who have some chronic condition who are already eligible and in many cases have been vaccinated."

But by Friday, the Department of Health moved up the target date to make educators eligible, including support staff and in pre-K through 12th-grade settings.

That decision led to Theresa Kerney, a cosmetology teacher for more than three decades at the Gloucester County Institute of Technology — a vocational-technical public high school in Deptford Township — to become one of the first in the group of educators to receive the vaccine, calling it a “game-changer.”

“And it’s now back to the classroom,” she said.

Kerney also indicated how thrilled she was “to be a symbol for all the teachers who want to say, ‘Thank you — we’re so excited to be able to educate our students and to be able to get them back into the classroom and have a normalcy of life again,” she said. “And it’s just wonderful to be selected — I feel so honored, and I can’t tell how special that is to me.”

The room burst into applause upon Kerney receiving the vaccine, with five of her colleagues from Gloucester County Institute of Technology and the Gloucester County Special Services School District following her in line for the next shots.

"We know that remote working is difficult. Remote learning for kids is also difficult," Persichilli said. "I look at the teachers, and I say, ‘God bless you; we need you. Let’s get back to school. The kids need you.’”

This post contains reporting from Andy Milone of the Pine Barrens Tribune

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