‘Not just teachers’: CMS wants vaccine priority for all employees who work with students

Annie Ma
·3 min read

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools leaders want district employees who work face-to-face with students to be considered a top priority for a COVID-19 vaccine, once approved.

In a letter to county, state and federal public health officials, CMS board chair Elyse Dashew and intergovernmental relations committee chair Margaret Marshall requested that those staff members be prioritized just behind health-care workers for vaccination.

“Once a vaccine is available, we believe that our staff who work directly with students should be included among those who receive priority after first-line responders,” they wrote. “This priority would be in the best interests of students and staff.”

North Carolina’s phased vaccine distribution plan currently puts teachers and other school staff in phase 2. Phase 1a focuses on vaccinating health-care workers and medical first responders. Phase 1b includes residents and staff in long-term care facilities, adults with more than one chronic condition, and people older that 65 in congregate living settings like homeless shelters and jails.

The distribution plan puts students in K-12 and college in phase 3, while the general public would be in phase 4.

CMS executive director of government affairs Charles Jeter said the district wanted to ensure that all staff who work face-to-face with students are included in the phase 2 rollout. For example, bus drivers, school psychologists and others who are not school-based are considered district or central office employees but spend considerable time with students.

“It’s not just teachers,” he said. “There’s a large portion of our staff, 94%, who come into contact with students.”

Since late September, CMS has slowly returned students to in-person instruction over three-week intervals. Students with disabilities were first to return, followed by pre-K students and children in elementary school. On Monday, the district began in-person instruction for middle school grades 6-8 in schools that serve K-8 students.

Public schools in North Carolina will reopen next month. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has opted for two weeks of in-person classes, followed by full remote instruction this fall.
Public schools in North Carolina will reopen next month. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has opted for two weeks of in-person classes, followed by full remote instruction this fall.

Students in traditional middle schools that serve grades 6-8 are expected to return on Jan. 5, along with high school students. The return of in-person learning for middle school students was delayed due to a shortage of bus drivers, as many of them took some form of approved leave due to the coronavirus pandemic after elementary schools began reopening.

The county health department has not identified any outbreaks in CMS schools, chief school performance officer Kathy Elling said during a Tuesday update on the district’s closely watched public health and operational metrics.

But important measures of community spread have steadily worsened over the past month. Both the percent positivity and the number of new cases per 100,000 over a seven-day period increased week over week. The percent of tests coming back positive in the latest update, presented Tuesday, was 8.9%, while the number of new cases per 100,000 reached 224.3.

In the last week of CMS’s most recent metrics report, 22 students and 23 employees tested positive for COVID-19. The update covers cases reported to the district between 6 p.m. Nov. 20 and 6 p.m. Nov. 24, before the district closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.