INDIANAPOLIS — Meijer announced Friday it is preparing to vaccinate 10,000 teachers across the state. The move comes after a strong effort to prioritize educators getting the COVID-19 vaccine in Indiana.
Meijer is partnering with the Indiana State Teachers Association to open vaccine clinics in stores around the state to help make it easier for teachers and other school staff to get the vaccine.
The retailer will have a dozen clinics administer more than 10,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine by the end of next week to Pre-K through 12th-grade teachers and school staff who preregister. Those workers will need to verify their school affiliation on Meijer's registration website before receiving a vaccine. They can also register by texting "ISTA" to 75049 or visiting a Meijer pharmacy in person. Appointments for the second dose will be made when teachers and school staff receive their first dose.
“We will be working to get teachers vaccinated close to where they live. We will have some large-scale clinics where we will have as many as 1,200 people a day going through clinic locations. Most of them will be in our stores,” said Frank Guglielmi, senior director of corporate communications for Meijer.
By vaccinating all educators, Keith Gambill, president of ISTA, is hopefully the school year will end a lot differently than how it started.
“This will come about right at the start of the fourth quarter for most of our schools and will help us to stabilize that important learning environment for our students,” he said.
The Meijer in Avon announced they will start vaccinating local educators and employees starting Tuesday, which marks exactly one year since Avon Community School Corporation moved to e-learning.
"We are very pleased to continue to support the State of Indiana with this extremely important initiative," said Jason Beauch, vice president of pharmacy for Meijer. "With nearly 40 stores in Indiana, our pharmacy teams have been working across the state for weeks to administer vaccine doses to seniors, and we’re proud to broaden this outreach to include teachers, who are such an important part of our communities."
State leaders have remained confident in their plan to roll out the vaccine based on age to decrease hospitalizations and the number of deaths in the state. So far, it has worked.
Still, teachers and their supporters believe they should be high on the priority list to get the vaccine. Schools have closed, reopened, and switched back and forth between virtual and in-class learning. Educators struggled to teach and protect themselves and their students.
"I alone have 160 students on my roster. If they are going to come back, that is a lot of exposure for me and exposure for them," Victor Schleich, a teacher at North Central High School, told 13News.
"We believe this will get the learning conditions a little bit more under control which also helps with family life," said Keith Gambill, ISTA president.
At his weekly news conference Wednesday, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Hoosiers 50 and older were eligible to receive the vaccine, opening up opportunity for many more — but not all — teachers. Holcomb said Indiana would rely on the federal pharmacy program to help get all teachers vaccinated.
Holcomb said Meijer, Kroger and Walmart are partnering with the federal government to administer vaccines to teachers who aren't age-eligible based on the state's rollout. Meijer said it has already administered more than 25,000 COVID-19 doses in Indiana since their clinics opened.
Meijer said it will not publicly release the location of the clinics reserved for teachers and school staff. Registered patients will be contacted directly with details for their appointment once a window becomes available.