Baker faces growing pressure on COVID-19 vaccine priorities, strategy bostonglobe.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bostonglobe.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Vaccinating educators is a start, but more challenges ahead on reopening schools
By James Vaznis Globe Staff,Updated March 3, 2021, 8:52 p.m.
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Jaden Gomes sanitized the desk he used in his algebra class at Brockton High School.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
Many educators around Massachusetts were elated after Governor Charlie Baker announced on Wednesday that they will soon be eligible for COVID-19 vaccinations, but they say many other challenges remain unresolved before full-time in-person learning can resume at many schools.
Inoculating the stateâs approximately 400,000 educators, school employees, and child care workers could take more than a month as they compete for limited appointments with hundreds of thousands of other eligible residents.
Gouveia says it s dangerous, pointing to people soliciting eligible seniors online and offering money to be their companions so they can get vaccinated, too. You re talking about getting into a car with someone you don t know, she said. Someone who is saying they will pay you to accompany you to the vaccination site.
There are also complaints that adding companions to the list pushes others further down including teachers.
In Boston Public Schools, there are 3,000 teachers working in person, and there have been more than 150 cases of COVID-19. The state should have followed the recommendation of the CDC to prioritize not just 65 and older folks, but also K-12 educators, said Jessica Tang, president of the Boston Teachers Union.
Updated Feb. 10 | Mike Antonucci’s Union Report column appears most Wednesdays; see the full archive. “Reopening America’s 98,000 public school buildings doesn’t happen with an all-caps tweet or an ultimatum from the president.” Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, in a July 19, 2020, column for The New York Times. […]
Walshâs departure leaves beleaguered schools still in the lurch
The acting mayor and the next mayor-elect will inherit a crisis in Boston Public Schools that demands urgent attention.
By The Editorial BoardUpdated February 1, 2021, 4:00 a.m.
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Margene Mills, a custodian at the Mather Elementary School in Dorchester, cleaned a plexiglass barrier on a teacher s desk.David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
As he departs for Washington, Mayor Marty Walsh leaves a public school system thatâs little improved from the one he inherited in 2014. Indeed, in some ways Boston has slid backward: Despite spending more per pupil than almost any other district in the state, Boston Public Schools has seen its graduation rates fall for the first time in a decade on Walshâs watch. Meanwhile, a third of the districtâs students attend subpar schools. The state, which said in an audit last year that âthe district does not have a clear, coherent, district-wide strategyâ