NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) – Kathleen Lourence can’t wait to greet her first graders again.
“They’ve won a pizza party and we’ll celebrate that we’re back with the others,” said Lourence, a Rosebank Elementary teacher in East Nashville.
But teachers will have to wait to get the COVID-19 vaccine in Davidson County. “It’s not good that we have to do it. We should be better prepared as a state, as a city,” he said.
Kathleen was willing to wait until it was her turn, and then she learned that Metro Schools was returning to face-to-face learning.
“You know what, I have to protect myself and I have to protect my students, so I will do whatever I have to do,” he said.
So he found the nearest county with vaccines available to the educators, called another teacher friend, booked his appointments in White County, and hit the road. Once Kathleen and her friend were vaccinated, a photo was taken to mark the milestone and send a message.
“Teachers should get vaccinated,” Lourence said. “I think the state really needs to get its endowments. It’s really curious that Davidson and Shelby counties, the largest urban districts, don’t have enough doses for teachers.”
Metro Nashville Public Health says they can’t provide a timeline or estimate of when teachers could start vaccinating because health workers are still trying to vaccinate. That’s why Metro School Superintendent Adrienne Battle told reporters Monday she expects Gov. Bill Lee to step in.
“If Tennessee’s leadership is serious about keeping staff in the classrooms, we need to make vaccines a priority now, not just on a chart, but in real life, right now,” Battle said.
Until that happens, Lourence plans to help the rest of the teachers who can’t wait either.
“If you want kids to go back to school, that should be a priority. So I think our state and county health departments need to step up that,” Lourence said.
Lourence and her friend are not the only ones traveling to get vaccinated. He says a handful of teachers at his school have also traveled to Smith and Carroll counties and that he has heard of other teachers from other schools who do as well.