DALLAS — With education and childcare staff now eligible for vaccinations across Texas, counties are making adjustments to get the new group registered and lined up.
Dallas County will start vaccinating its teachers and educators with a federal allotment of COVID-19 vaccine Friday "to the fullest extent possible," Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said Thursday.
The county will start with educators who live in the 17 FEMA-prioritized ZIP codes, and will start with those who are eligible for vaccine group 1B, Jenkins said.
Jenkins made the announcement during a Zoom news conference from his car Thursday afternoon. You can watch his full remarks on the WFAA Facebook or YouTube pages.
Tarrant Judge Glen Whitley said the county is planning a mass vaccination event Monday for Arlington ISD employees at the county's location at the E-Sports Arena.
“We expect that there's going to be a bump up in the registrations," Whitley said. "We're going to hopefully be able to work with the school districts themselves.”
Fort Worth ISD announced a partnership with Texas Health Resources to vaccinate all district employees.
“I’m very excited. I’m already registered myself. I just got registered today," David Orona, an art teacher at Manuel Jara Elementary School said.
Orona says after a challenging year with heavy workloads and COVID-19 cases, becoming eligible is welcome news.
“We’re energized and believe me, everybody is doing everything they can to sign up," Orona said. "It’s gonna help and it’s a great relief."
Health officials say around 824,000 people fall under the new category with around 78,000 in Dallas County, 55,000 in Tarrant County, 33,500 in Collin County and 21,500 in Denton County.
In Dallas County, educators who qualify in those ZIP codes should go sign up for the vaccine at dallascounty.org and say they are an educator in the job field title. The shots could be either Pfizer or Johnson & Johnson doses, Jenkins said.
In Tarrant County, employees should have already entered their information in the county's online registration system but can call the county to make sure it's listed correctly including the employer.
Denton County has opened its registration system to education and childcare employees and, for now, plans to work through the list in order of sign up.
Collin County froze its registration signup on February 8, so educators are currently unable to signup.
On Tuesday, President Joe Biden and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services directed states to expand the eligibility for vaccines to include people who work in school and child care operations.
The Texas health department announced the vaccine expansion for child care providers and school staff to state vaccination sites Wednesday.
Biden said his goal is for every pre-K through 12th grade educator, school staff member and childcare worker to receive at least one shot by the end of March.
That expansion for Texas educators includes:
- teachers, including pre-primary, primary, secondary, Head Start and Early Head Start
- staff
- bus drivers
- those who work for licensed child care providers, such as staff and support
- licensed child care providers, including center-based or family care providers
This does not change the other groups who are prioritized for the vaccine, like 1A and 1B.
Jenkins said Dallas County leadership is still awaiting guidance from the state of Texas on how to allocate whatever resources the state will distribute to the county. More information on that front should be coming next week, he said.
"As you know, we don't have any vaccine to give from the state, so it's somewhat of a hypothetical until we can get some vaccine from them. But the questions would be:
- "Will [the state] consider giving the vaccine directly to the schools so school nurses can vaccinate them from there?
- "Will [the state] be giving [the county] guidance on how to fold these teachers into the 1B list? Because the previous state guidance is to look to do the most vulnerable people first. As a cohort, teachers tend to be less old and have less underlying conditions than people already on the list.
- "Will [the state] be giving [the county] an allocation specifically for [educators] or will they tell us to give a percentage of the shots we do have just for educators?"
"I know that doesn't help everyone, and I'm still very concerned about our elderly and sick population. But we'll continue to work to get everyone vaccinated," Jenkins said.
Digital producer Eline de Bruijn contributed to this report.