Aug 20, 2021 3 min read

According to U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona, close to 90% of teachers in the country have received COVID-19 vaccines, an infinitely sensible action to take, considering that many will soon be entering classrooms with children who have either not yet been vaccinated or are under age 12 and not yet eligible.

We can’t help but wonder what the remaining 10% are waiting for.

Unless they have a medical or religious exemption, the holdouts have probably fallen for the same misinformation that has led other Americans to be skeptical about the vaccines, which have been shown to be safe and highly effective, or feel like they are making a political statement – their body, their choice, and if they catch COVID, that’s their problem.

But it’s not just their problem. If teachers enter classrooms without having been vaccinated, they are increasing the risks for the students they are teaching, their fellow staffers and the community as a whole, particularly as the highly contagious delta variant spreads. Many districts and the national unions that represent teachers have so far taken the approach that they recommend vaccines, but are not calling for mandates.

It’s hard to see how subtle nudging or gentle arm-twisting will be sufficient to get the unvaccinated to get the jabs, however. Given their crucial role, it’s time to mandate teachers be vaccinated.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser on the coronavirus and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes there should be a requirement for a teachers to be vaccinated. On MSNBC Tuesday, he said, “I’m going to upset some people on this, but I think we should. I mean, we are in a critical situation now. We’ve had 615,000-plus deaths, and we are in a major surge now as we’re going into the fall, into the school season. This is a very serious business.”

So far, the National Education Association, which has 3 million members in its ranks, has not yet come out in support of vaccine mandates, but the American Federation of Teachers seems to be moving in that direction. Last weekend, union president Randi Weingarten said in an interview on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” “As a matter of personal conscience, I think that we need to be working with our employers, not opposing them, on vaccine mandates.”

Already, New York City’s school district is mandating teacher vaccinations, as is the Upper Merion district near Philadelphia, with officials in the latter saying that employees who still don’t want to be vaccinated would have to submit to twice-weekly COVID-19 tests and wear masks. Penalties for non-compliance could eventually include dismissal.

There have been several news stories in recent days about vaccinated Americans becoming fed up with the adults who are declining the vaccine, and the frustration is easy to understand. By refusing the readily available and free vaccine, they are prolonging the pandemic, increasing the likelihood that restrictions will be put back in place, the economic recovery will be stymied and, most distressingly, a mutation even more dangerous than the delta variant will develop, and it will evade the vaccines entirely.

Teachers need to be vaccinated. For that matter, so does everyone else.