As the first vaccine doses get shipped to Colorado, we face a divisive political debate on who should be first in line to receive them. The most important thing we can do to put Colorado back on track is to put educators at the front of the line for the vaccine.
This means classifying educators as critical workers, the same way we have done for health care workers, firefighters, first responders and police officers. By educators, I don’t just mean teachers. I’m also talking about principals, counselors, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and all those responsible for running our schools.
These critical workers are the center of gravity of our economy and our community. That’s why Gary Community Investments advocated for early and regular COVID-19 testing of educators, and has now delivered nearly 100,000 COVID tests to educators through our COVIDCheck Colorado platform.
School closures are inflicting deep and irreversible damage to our country. Our kids risk losing an entire year of academic gains, and those who stand to lose the most are low-income kids of color who were already furthest behind. This will dramatically set back our national goals for academic excellence and equity.
With countries like Germany, China and New Zealand finding ways to retain in-person teaching and learning, America could lose even more ground to our international competitors. It also means in a country where many low-income kids and kids of color don’t have reliable access to broadband or internet devices, remote schooling will blow wide open the opportunity gaps we have spent decades closing.
This pandemic has proven that schools are far more than places to read, write and learn arithmetic — they are engines of equity and harbors of hope; the places children go to eat, get counseling, build friendships, and find belonging and purpose. The absence of this vital seam of our social fabric is showing up in devastating ways: Increased levels of domestic violence, adolescent depression and suicide, and severe child abuse when there is no teacher to catch the early warning signs.
Educators are also the single most catalytic group of workers needed to help our economy recover and address the major long-term risks facing the country. They are the vaccine that will stop Colorado’s economic recession and protect our future prosperity. We cannot expect parents to go back to work in person when their kids cannot go back to school in person. According to research by Brookings, 96% of families with children under 14 say they do not have a caregiver if their student cannot do in-person learning. When parents can’t go to work, businesses can’t open and customers can’t purchase. The only way to put parents back to work is to get kids back in school safely.
Some argue it is inequitable to prioritize educators for vaccines because they are a predominantly white, middle-class, and middle-aged population in the midst of a pandemic that is disproportionately hitting low-income families, families of color and the elderly. We know that these communities are hardest hit by the virus. We also know that our schools are the financial and emotional backbone of every community. Vaccinating educators enables black and brown parents to get back to work to support their families and gets black and brown kids back to school to access the academic, social and emotional supports they need to thrive.
When I hear my mom crying through the phone, telling me how much she misses her grandkids, there is no one in the world I would rather give the vaccine to than her. But what my 84-year-old mother wants more than anything is for her grandkids to be back in school, with smiles on their faces, big ideas in their heads and warmth in their hearts. That’s what parents do — they are always looking forward and putting their kids first. And for our country to do that right now, when it comes to the vaccine, putting kids first means putting educators first.
Mike Johnston is the president and CEO of Gary Community Investments and a former Colorado state senator from 2009-2017.
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December 07, 2020 at 11:30PM
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Mike Johnston: Educators should be front of the line for the COVID vaccine - The Denver Post
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