NASHVILLE, Tennessee (WTVF) – Kathleen Lourence can’t wait to greet her first graders in person.
“They won a pizza party and we’re going to celebrate going back to each other,” said Lourence, a teacher at Rosebank Elementary in East Nashville.
But teachers will have to wait to get their COVID-19 vaccine in Davidson County. “It’s not good that we have to do this. We should have been better prepared as a state, as a city,” she said.
Kathleen was willing to wait until her turn came, then she heard that Metro schools were returning to personal learning.
“You know what, I have to protect myself and I have to protect my students, so I will do everything I have to do,” she said.
So he found the nearest county with vaccines available to educators, called another teacher, booked his appointments in White County, and set off. Once Kathleen and her boyfriend were vaccinated, they took a photo to mark the milestone and send a message.
“Teachers should be vaccinated,” Lourence said. “I think the state really needs to straighten out its allocation. It’s very curious to me how Davidson and Shelby counties, the largest urban districts, don’t have enough doses for teachers.”
Metro Nashville Public Health says it can’t provide a timeline or estimate of when teachers could start vaccinating because they are still trying to vaccinate health care workers. That’s why Metro school superintendent Adrienne Battle told reporters Monday she hopes Governor Bill Lee will enter.
“If Tennessee’s leadership is serious about keeping staff in classrooms, we need to make vaccinations a priority now, not just on a chart, but in real life right now,” Battle said.
Until this happens, Lourence intends to help all the other teachers who are just waiting.
“If you want children to go back to school, this should be a priority. So I think our state and county health departments need to step up it,” Lourence said.
Lourence and her girlfriend are not the only ones traveling to get vaccinated. She says a handful of teachers at her school have traveled to Smith and Carroll counties and heard that other teachers at other schools are doing the same.