Gwinnett County Public Schools and the Gwinnett, Newton, Rockdale County Health Departments are offering COVID-19 vaccines to students and their families in the next two weeks at three high schools.
The partnership is also providing meningitis booster shots to incoming 11th-graders and tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis boosters to incoming seventh-graders, Interim Associate Superintendent Al Taylor said Thursday at a school board work session.
“Over this past year, the health department, to focus specifically on COVID, has really suspended a lot of their immunization programs,” Taylor said. “With this opportunity, we’re excited that they’re going to be able to support us.”
Vaccines will be administered from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at Lanier High School, June 25 at Norcross High School and July 2 at Grayson High School. The vaccinations are open to the public and appointments are not required, but the school district is limiting its communications to students and families in each high school feeder pattern and surrounding ones, Taylor said.
Gwinnett will also try to target summer athletic programs for vaccinations, he said.
“We had a number of schools that lost seasons, or parts of seasons, due to quarantine or COVID issues,” he said.
Through partnerships, the school district will provide COVID-19 vaccination opportunities during new teacher orientation and staff planning days leading up to the first day of school, Taylor said.
The district vaccinated almost 1,000 students and families against COVID-19 in recent weeks through a partnership with Walmart and the Atlanta Gladiators.
During the 2020-2021 school year, the school district reported 5,401 known cases of the coronavirus among students and staff.
Gwinnett is anticipating updated guidance in coming weeks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for schools in the fall. Taylor said he expects the guidance to reflect the increasing dominance of the highly contagious delta variant first seen in India.
“We can’t really overstate how much we depend on the CDC for guidance, and how we really try to anchor our decisions around our health departments and in collaboration with our health departments,” he said.
Taylor said schools will continue stocking personal protective equipment, including masks, gloves, hand sanitizer and cleaning wipes.
“We’re going to engage our community partners to assist in making COVID testing more available and accessible for our staff and for our students,” he said. “We’ll make the adjustments accordingly, as we’ve always done.”
With about 98% of the district’s 180,000 students returning to classrooms in a staggered fashion beginning Aug. 4, some of last school year’s mitigation efforts, such as one-way hallways and limited cafeteria use, might change or become impossible, Taylor said.
As of Thursday, the COVID-19 positivity rate in Gwinnett County was 1.1%, the lowest since tracking began.
“We’re very encouraged that, should this trend continue, that we’ll be well placed for a smoother transition into the fall,” Taylor said.
