Equitably and safely vaccinating Washington educators and school staff is the goal of the new “Get Ready” plan announced Friday, Jan. 29, by state schools Superintendent Chris Reykdal.

The plan is designed to be launch-ready when personnel become eligible under the state’s vaccination protocols and will focus on supporting a safe return to school and ensures a commitment to fairness, equity and consistency in the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.

“Keeping our educators and school staff safe is very important to me,” Gov. Jay Inslee said. “This announcement does not allow educators to move ahead in the current prioritization; it means when it is their turn, we are ready to move ahead.”

The plan will include up to 20 vaccination locations along the I-5 corridor and in Spokane that will be capable of offering vaccinations to up to 80 percent of school employees.

The state schools office and Department of Health are planning further efforts to define potential sites for Central Washington school employees.

“Although our schools are already reopening safely without widespread vaccinations, we know this will expedite that process and ultimately benefit our students, their families, our educators and staff, and our communities as a whole,” Rekdahl said, adding 143,000 school employees need vaccinations.

While the aim was to launch “Get Ready” in four weeks, Reykdal said in a Jan. 29 press briefing that it’s more likely to happen in five or six weeks as coordinated efforts look to get hundreds of thousands of doses ready for school staffers.

“We don’t have physical assets in place yet,” he said.

School districts are encouraged to maintain existing vaccination plans; however, this integrated approach will offer an equitable approach, state officials said. All vaccination efforts will be in coordination with the newly formed state Vaccine Command and Coordination Center. Availability will continue to be dependent upon the number of vaccines the state receives.

The plan will include vaccine resources and space provided by Kaiser Permanente at its clinics as well as K-12 school locations. A website and updated information on this integrated approach will offer information about timing, scheduling and links to resources such as PhaseFinder and more.

“The health and safety of our students, staff, and families is a top priority for our state, and we’re proud to support school employees and lead on equitable vaccine distribution,” said Susan Mullaney, president of Kaiser Permanente Washington.

“We know how to run mass vaccination sites,” Mullaney said during the Jan. 29 press briefing.

“Now we’ll be expanding our capacity to offer our vaccinations … to school teachers and staff throughout the Puget Sound region and Spokane when we move into the next stage of their eligibility.”

For educators on the Olympic Peninsula and others located wet of the Puget Sound, that means they would go to the closest Kaiser Permanente Washington facility in Poulsbo.

In other more rural areas, “it may be that some school district get a call and be asked to host some clinics,” Reykdal said.

Those eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine currently include groups in Phase 1 Tier 1A, 2A and 1B. Educators and staff in K-12 facilities are expected to be eligible to receive the vaccine after 50 percent of the currently eligible population are vaccinated, in accordance with DOH plans. Future phases of the vaccination process are not yet established.

Educators will not be getting ahead of others in the tiered system, Reykdal said, but rather will know where to go when eligible.

“we are going to be super consistent with the state framework,” Reykdal said. “Folks should thing about this … (that) educators know where to go before we get the green light, “so when they are given the green light, it’s very efficient.”

Reykdal said the vaccinations aren’t a “fix” to the COVID-19 issue within schools but more like a backstop for health guidelines and regulations.

“Our students won’t get this for quite a while, based on all the current clinic trials,” he said. “The vaccine is a tremendous safety net.”

To open schools and keep them open, he said students and staff still need to maintain healthy guidelines and to “treat the vaccine like it’s one more safety protocol.”

Reykdal acknowledged that some education advocates would like to see students stay in a remote learning mode until all school staff are vaccinated. However, he said, national guidelines and advice from pediatricians and clinicians note schools can open safely if protocols are followed.

“On balance, given the health profile of developing kids, there is a way to open up schools safely,” he said. “We’ve been doing it all over the state and country.

“We need to open opening or schools right now. Some want to wait. The science says to us … the faster we come to school, the better. But we’ve got to follow those safety protocols.”

He added, “There’s a ton of work ahead of us … (but) I have not doubt we’ll have the right people in the right places to pull this off.”