In just two days, over 300 Habersham County teachers, staff and administration have received their COVID-19 vaccines. After the Board of Education announced their plans to vaccinate all interested Habersham schools staff on Monday, elated staff members documented their vaccinations over Thursday and Friday with photos, or celebrated with loved ones.
“I’m thrilled, absolutely thrilled that we’ve reached this point,” Says Rhonda Andrews, Habersham Schools Director of Elementary Curriculum. “And glad that we were able to do this for our staff members– to go ahead and get this done. And I’m so, so happy that Kemp finally put teachers into the mix because they’re taking a risk every day this year, coming into work.”
Teachers waiting on their vaccination, like Brenda Cowart, Sheila Green, Margi Stewart and Lisa Duncan from Habersham Mountain Education Charter High School expressed that the vaccine itself wasn’t something they were excited about– but they wanted it to get their students back in classrooms. “Hopefully [we can] move on to a better place,” Stewart says. “And protect our grandkids and our kids.”
Andrews says she’s ready to be able to safely have students back in school, too, and hopes for a return to a normal school year soon. She’s especially excited for herself and other educators to reconnect with the students that they haven’t seen in person since the onset of the pandemic.
“We serve a lot of different roles for kids nowadays in education,” Andrews says. “When you’ve got those [students] you’re worried about, and you don’t see or hear from them, it just keeps you awake at night sometimes. We’re ready to get [school] back to a normal look and feel for everybody.”
One of the biggest steps towards school as normal is getting vaccines in arms, according to Crystal Holcomb, Habersham Schools Director of Nursing and Health Services.
“The more people that we have vaccinated, the healthier our overall staff is going to be,” Holcomb says. “We’re not spreading the virus from staff member to staff member, or staff member to student, or student to staff member, because if we have some that are protected, the spread stops with them. So, the more we have protected, the more we can reduce our numbers of COVID.”
The now-vaccinated 338 Habersham Schools staff members are not only protecting themselves and their students, but may very well be the catalysts for a return to a school as usual, a year after their shutdown for the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I think we weathered the storm very well,” Andrews says. “And it’s nice now that we’ve got some light at the end of the tunnel.”
