Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston and NC Governor Roy Cooper may not officially be pen pals.
But Alston has sent the governor a second letter in 2021 – this one requesting 15,000 COVID-19 vaccination doses to be given to the county’s school teachers and other education staff.
Alston had some luck with a request to Cooper recently when he convinced Cooper to come to Greensboro to witness Guilford County’s vaccination effort at Mount Zion Baptist Church. This second request, however, may be a little harder to get fulfilled since vaccine doses are hard to come by these days.
But Alston is definitely in the “There’s no harm in asking” school of thought, and he wants to see enough doses for public and private school educators.
Last week, Cooper announced that, on Wednesday, Feb. 24, teachers would become eligible for vaccinations in the state. Currently, vaccinations are limited – barring extenuating circumstances – to some health care workers and people 65 and over.
Even though teaches will become eligible on Feb. 24, county and school leaders know that does no good unless there are enough doses to carry out the needed vaccinations.
The Tuesday, Feb. 16 letter, which was also directed to NC Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen, states: “In addition to our population and equity allotments, we ask that the state consider allocating two supplemental allocations of 7,500 doses for the assignment weeks of March 4th and March 11th from the state’s holdback supply designated for mass vaccination events. Receipt of these additional 15,000 doses over the two-week distribution window will allow us to complete a rapid push to vaccinate all our k-12 teachers and staff as schools re-open.”
Alston pointed out that Guilford County has the third-largest public-school district in the state, with more than 10,000 K-12 staff – and thousands more educators who work in private schools, charter schools and at childcare centers. With those workers added in, Alston stated in the letter, Guilford County has a total of about 15,000 educators who qualify under the new eligibility guidelines.
Alston noted that, while Guilford County is working hard to reduce the spread of the virus, the county is still seeing community spread. Alston noted that this additional vaccine allocation would help the county address that community spread issue in schools, protect teachers and reduce school closures.
“With your recent announcement that vaccine opportunities for our educators and school personnel will be available after February 24, I am asking once again, on behalf of the full Board, for the state’s support to obtain additional vaccine allocations,” Alston wrote.
Alston also thanked Cooper for visiting the vaccine clinic at Mount Zion Baptist Church last week.
The two men know each other well and have a relationship that goes back two decades.
NC Department of Health and Human Services COVID-19 Response Leader Kody Kinsley, sent Alston a reply on Tuesday night.
“We are in receipt of your letter,” it read. “Thank you. We applaud your leadership and we are grateful for your continued partnership on behalf of North Carolinians. As you know, we are in receipt of many proposals for one-time events or efforts even while vaccine supply remains very constrained. However, please know that we will give great care to considering this one.”
My teacher sacrificed, and gave me her dose.
I am sick of all the fawning over “educators”. They work 9 months a year, quit at 3pm, get Cadillac benefits and retirement, and produce the most ill educated ignorant students in the Western World.
The government eduation monopoly neeeds to be broken.
Austin, I’ve often said, the problems in education begin in the administrative offices. These cushy jobs are held predominately by Leftwing hacks and the rainbow waterfall goes all the way down to the freshman class of educators who’ve been indoctrinated at the taxpayer funded universities. The lack of funds is directly DIRECTLY related to illegal immigration. These illegals put their kids in OUR schools, eat a free lunch and breakfast on our dime while Poppy works tax free and Mommacita gets a nice taxpayer funded EBT card. It’s simple economics. If 3 out of 10 folks eating at the Cracker Barrel didn’t pay their check it wouldn’t be long before they were out of business. These Teachers are a HUGE part of the problem. They complain about a lack of funds but refuse to address the afore mentioned problem. As you mentioned they receive a full salary but don’t have to work a full year. They get every holiday off with pay! Now they’re sitting on their rearends phoning it in and whining about returning to work despite what the science tells us. Follow the science, follow the science.These whiners also have the best insurance and benefits for days. They want an executive salary all for getting an associate degree! Wow! What greed! They’re “it’s all about the children” line is just that a line. I also agree that in the USA our children should be leading the world but instead these warped Leftwing snowflakes can only think about the history of one race the shame another race should feel and whatever the social justice feelgood flavor of the week is. Perhaps maybe theses “educators” should focus on the basics like reading, writing, and arithmetic and leave all their social justice crap at home. One last thing… if you are not happy in your chosen government funded profession GET ANOTHER JOB! It’s really not that complicated. I guess professor Flowerchild didn’t TEACH common sense!
I like how your direct assault excludes the hoity toity rich private schools that aren’t taxpayer funded.
I also like how you think the welfare queen is still a thing. That was like 40-50 years ago that Reagan sold you on that lie. Most of welfare (about 60%) is medicaid – that’s literally money just to keep people from dying. It is also a smaller cost than what we spend on old people (social security for the folks that didn’t earn and save enough for actual retirement, medicare for old people not to die).
Let’s talk about teacher salaries – they make $35,000 a year as a starting salary in NC. That is a NINE MONTH CONTRACT. If that were a “full salary” that would maybe equate to about $17.50 an hour. That is less than most interns make during the summer. They work, just like you and me, under the terms of their contracts. If you expect them to work 12 months, you should expect to pay them about $47,000 at a minimum for that work.
Funny thing about shame is that the rightwing argument against poverty is to shame people into working harder and/or not complaining that their life sucks. Leftwing policy isn’t about teaching shame, it’s about teaching humility. Something you clearly didn’t get through your “good old days” education.
Your racial slurs are disgusting and scream your values.
Agree fully .
Why do teachers need a vaccine working from home?