Nearly 1,900 Lakota school workers start morning lining up for coronavirus shots

Hundreds of Lakota teachers and staffers lined up this morning at a closed high school in the latest in a series of coronavirus vaccinations designed to make schools safer.

About 1,900 school employees from the region’s largest suburban district are scheduled to file through Lakota West High School in West Chester Township today to receive the first of two injections through a partnership with the Kroger Company.

“Hopefully we feel like this is the next step to getting this pandemic and virus pandemic behind us so we can get back some sort of normalcy for our kids and for our families,” said Lakota Superintendent Matt Miller, who joined other district employees at the high school.

Miller said there was some delay this morning from Kroger’s employees setting up the injections “having some issues with technology.”

Last week Middletown Schools’ employees were the first school staffers in Ohio to receive their initial vaccination, which was coordinated through Middletown’s health department.

The area’s other public and private school employee vaccines will be rolled out over the remaining three weeks of February due to limited supplies, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine recently said.

“Vaccine is incredibly scarce, and we simply don’t have enough to vaccinate everyone at the same time. Therefore, this will be a rolling process, just like it has been during other vaccination phases, with a goal of administering all first doses by March 1st,” said DeWine.

“This rollout schedule is a heavy logistical lift that aims to ensure the maximum number of people can be vaccinated in the shortest amount of time.”

Lakota Schools, which enroll 16,800 students, closed all in-person and at home, remote learning Wednesday to all teachers and other employees to receive the initial coronavirus injection.

“We will get everyone through today,” said Miller. “It’ll be a long day but we’re here and we’re glad our teachers and staff are taking advantage of this awesome opportunity.”

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