The White House sought Wednesday to walk back comments from a top health official endorsing the return of teachers to class without vaccinations, a sign of the pressure teachers unions are placing on the Biden administration.
The confusion came after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday that teachers do not need to be vaccinated for schools to reopen safely.
“I want to be clear. There is increasing data to support that schools can safely reopen and that safe reopening does not suggest teachers need to be vaccinated,” Walensky said at a response team briefing.
When asked about Walensky’s remarks at a press briefing Wednesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said they were not policy.
“They have not released their guidance yet, from the CDC, yet, on the vaccination of teachers and what would be needed to ensure the safe reopening of schools. We’d defer to that [guidance], which we hope to see soon,” Psaki said. “The president himself has talked about the importance of a priority of vaccinating teachers.”
The National Education Association has argued that teachers should receive priority access to COVID-19 vaccines. “With promises of a vaccine on the horizon, we have a new opportunity to return to an in-person education where every student can thrive — but only if vaccination distribution is equitable and education campaigns are transparent,” NEA President Becky Pringle said in December.
Local teacher unions have recently insisted that teachers won’t be returning to in-person teaching until educators are vaccinated. Last week, most teachers in Chicago refused to return to school. The Chicago Teachers Union is demanding that teachers be immunized first.
Other local unions are making even more demands before they’ll agree to let teachers return to the classroom. In January, United Teachers of Los Angeles demanded not only that teachers get vaccines but that infection rates drop significantly in communities served by the L.A. Unified School District. In Fairfax, Virginia, the Fairfax Education Association has insisted on “staff & student vaccinations” before returning to the classroom.
