As Clinics Open, Teachers Get 1st Shots

King/Robinson middle school STEM teacher Jonathan Hill breathed a sigh of relief.

Not only will he be returning to the classroom in person for the first time in nearly a year later this week. He’ll also be doing so with a first dose of the Covid-19 vaccine already in his arm.

Hill, a Bridgeport native and two decade-veteran of the New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) system, has spent most of his professional career as a middle school algebra and middle school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) teacher at King/Robinson in Newhallville.

He was one of 326 people who signed up to get vaccinated Wednesday on the first day of a mass Covid-19 vaccination clinic run by Fair Haven Community Health Care inside the Wilbur Cross High School gymnasium at 181 Mitchell Dr. in East Rock.

The clinic is open to anyone aged 55 and up as well as to teachers and childcare providers, per the state’s current vaccination priority guidelines.

Fair Haven Community Health Care CEO Suzanne Lagarde said that the ​“majority” of the 326 people slated to get shots at the new Wilbur Cross site on Wednesday were NHPS teachers, paraprofessionals, and other school staff.

That included Hill.

He’s been teaching his middle school STEM classes remotely for nearly a year, since the public school system shut down all in-person learning at the start of the pandemic last March. While elementary school teachers and students have been back in the classroom for several weeks for hybrid learning, middle school teachers like Hill will be going back in-person on Thursday.

“Because of the vaccine, today I feel better about going back to the classroom,” Hill said. He said online learning has presented quite the challenge. Without being able to share a physical space with students and to be able to make eye contact with them in person, he’s less certain of who needs a little extra help, and who has a firm grasp on the material.

“You’re not really sure, unless you’re face to face, eye to eye, how everyone’s doing.”

He arrived at the vaccine clinic around 9:30 a.m. after scheduling an appointment in advance. After checking in at a front table staffed by Fair Haven Health nurses, he was directed to one of the site’s 12 vaccination stations.

With a smile beneath her face mask and face shield, Lagarde asked him to take off his winter coat so she could have easy access to the upper part of his left arm. Hill took off layer after layer after layer of winter clothing until finally his arm was bare.

“My wife said, ​‘You should wear a short-sleeve shirt today,’” Hill joked.

“You always need to listen to your wife,” Lagarde replied.

Lagarde asked if he has any allergies, and pre-existing medical conditions, and if he’d been vaccinated already. Hill said no to each question.

She then swabbed his arm and gave him a quick shot of the Moderna vaccine.

“That’s it?” Hill asked.

That’s it, the doctor replied.

She then directed Hill over to one half of the gym that had been set up as an observation area, where recently vaccinated individuals waited for 15 minutes as nurses looked on to make sure no one was having adverse reactions.

Before leaving, he was then directed to a station where he scheduled a follow-up appointment four weeks hence to get his second dose of the two-dose treatment.

Bishop Woods school social worker Stephanie Willis got to the gym-turned-clinic soon after 9 a.m. for her vaccination appointment.

A New Haven native who grew up on Artizan Street in Wooster Square, Willis has worked for NHPS as a middle school social worker for nine-and-a-half years. ​“It’s my passion,” she said.

She too got a shot in the arm by Lagarde, and then spent 15 minutes sitting and waiting in the observation area to make sure she had no adverse reactions.

She said that most of the conversations she’s had with students during one-on-one Zoom sessions over the past year have focused on how lonely they feel. ​“There hasn’t been that much concern about Covid,” she said. ​“It’s more about missing one another. Those who are at home want to be back in the building.”

Bishop Woods school psychologist Sarah Northrop, sitting nearby in the observation area after getting her first vaccination, said the same.

“We’re just trying to do the best we can to support students so that we can all safely go back to school full time” in the near future, she said.

Though not a school teacher or NHPS staffer, Michael Cavaliere also got his first shot of a Covid-19 vaccine at Wilbur Cross on Wednesday, too.

A 61-year-old West Haven resident, Cavaliere works in Orange as a transfer driver for U‑Haul.

Fair Haven Community Health Care pediatrician and Vice President of Clinical Affairs Everett Lamm asked Cavaliere the same set of questions about whether he’d already been vaccinated, if he has any allergies.

“I’ll give you my pediatrician’s pledge,” Lamm said with a smile as he prepared to give Cavaliere a quick shot: ​“This won’t hurt me a bit.”

Sure enough: ​“That hurt less than my flu vaccine,” Cavaliere said.

During a 10 a.m. press conference at the Wilbur Cross site, Mayor Justin Elicker said the city Health Department has vaccinated 8,300 people so far out of its Meadow Street clinic and at various pop-up clinics across the city.

In addition to the Wilbur Cross site, 14 schools across the city hosted vaccination clinics for school teachers and staff only. City Director of Public Health Nursing Jennifer Vazquez said that each of those school-based clinics would see roughly 30 people vaccinated on Wednesday. Superintendent Iline Tracey said that the school system has roughly 4,000 employees who are eligible to be vaccinated.

Vaccine Decisions

Not everyone in the school system is sure about getting the vaccine yet.

Jasanea Hernandez (pictured above) was handing out school meals on Wednesday at Conte/West Hills Magnet School. She has worked in person for the school meal program throughout the pandemic and in all weathers. She is not yet comfortable getting the vaccine, though.

“I want to see more from the CDC and from doctors about what is in it. How it affects your body is different from how it affects my body,” Hernandez said.

Doctors told her not to give her son the flu shot until he was 5 to avoid complications with a condition he has. He got the shot for the first time this year after doing extensive bloodwork.

The experience left her careful about her own vaccination, especially when her young son relies on her and her income. She has a primary care doctor to talk with about her options at Yale New Haven Health and still has good health insurance to cover her appointments, thanks to a recently approved contract between the district and her union.

Hernandez’s coworker Angela Scarpellino had no doubts about getting the shot after watching friends and family get Covid-19.

Scarpellino works in Conte’s cafeteria worker and lives nearby. One of her longtime family friends and neighbors died from Covid-19 a few weeks ago after battling it for months in the hospital. Scarpellino wasn’t able to visit her friend because of strict visiting rules at the hospital during the pandemic.

She listed others she knew who had come down with coronavirus: a man in his sixties in perfect health, another friend hospitalized and unresponsive, someone who worked at a funeral home.

“It’s scary. You can protect yourself, but if you sit down in a restaurant, people are taking off their masks and are maybe six feet away,” Scarpellino said.

She had family members who got the shot with minimal symptoms.

“It can’t be any worse than Covid,” Scarpellino said.

Scarpellino was able to get her shot in mid-February before many of the younger staff at her school because she’s over 65. She traveled to a recreation center in North Haven to get her shot, because that was the place where she could get the earliest appointment. She will be able to get her second shot soon. By April, she will be as protected as she can be and plans to travel to Florida, where she owns a home, for the spring break.

School nurse Cynthia Harris-Jackson walked out of Conte West Hills after helping her fellow nurse get set up for the day of vaccinations. She had already gotten both shots by February but is still being cautious. She wears her masks and gloves and encouraged others to continue wearing their masks as well.

“I feel we are on our way. We are far from out of the woods yet,” Harris-Jackson said.

Next Wednesday, it will be Harris-Jackson’s turn to administer the vaccines.

Returning To Normal

Those walking out of their appointments at Conte West Hills and Christopher Columbus Family Academy on Wednesday described a smooth process. They entered through one door, filled out paperwork, waited for their turn, got the shot and then waited another 15 minutes to make sure they didn’t have any side effects.

On the way out, staff got a metal pin to commemorate and advertise the experience.

No one reported any side effects and had not heard any other teachers who had experienced side effects either.

“It felt a little deeper in my arm than the typical flu shot, but that was it,” said Columbus third grade teacher Patrick Heenan. ​“It’s definitely a big relief. It’s a little weird knowing that I have to wait for the second shot, but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”

Heenan has been teaching in-person for roughly a month now. He hasn’t been exposed to any Covid-positive cases. He has worries about in-person school safety. So far, he has been pleased to see that his students have done a good job keeping their masks on.

Columbus math teacher Theodora Dogani and social studies teacher Ryan Healy are starting their in-person classes on Thursday morning. Neither feels particularly relieved after getting one shot; both wish they could have gotten the second shot as well before going back. Healy’s brother works as a teacher in New York state and has already gotten both shots.

Healy would be happy to keep teaching remotely as long as the option is available, he said. He has heard the idea for a remote academy floated as a potential use for the second round of Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER II) dollars.

“A lot of kids don’t show up in regular school. This could be a different option,” Healy said. ​“I would be the first to apply.”

Gym teacher Julie Bacher was thrilled to get her first shot on Wednesday and is ready for the second dose. She has worked remotely throughout the pandemic because of a heart condition. In addition, she takes care of her elderly parents, who have just gotten their second shots.

She plans to teach in person on the 11th day after her second dose, as soon as the full vaccine has kicked into effect.

“I can’t wait. Home is very overrated,” Bacher said.

She called remote teaching the hardest thing she has done in her 28 years of teaching. She keeps her classes interactive though. She sends her kids on scavenger hunts in their homes, for example. Even though the instruction is to run and touch the object, students will often try to bring the object back to show the others. She saw one kindergartener trying to lug a desk into his video frame.

On her first days back, she plans to start them off with their favorite games — soccer and capture the flag. Then they will work back through the district’s physical education curriculum. Students who have opted to stay remote will be projected onto a big screen so the kids in class can see them, and vice versa.

Bacher has worked hard to keep herself and her parents safe during the pandemic, she said. She hasn’t seen friends or gone to restaurants.

“When you can’t do something, your appreciation for the simple things …” Bacher mimed an exponential upward curve. ​“You don’t sweat the small stuff.”

See below for information on where and how to schedule an appointment to get vaccinated, and for Facebook Live videos of Wednesday’s presser.

Yale New Haven Health System: Visit the website here or call 833-ASK-YNHH
Cornell Scott Hill Health Center: Visit the website here or call 203 – 503-3000
Fair Haven Community Health Care: Visit the website here or call 203 – 871-4179
Walgreens (436 Whalley Ave., 88 York St., or 87 Foxon St.): Visit the website here or call (203) 777‑8001 for 436 Whalley Ave.: ; (203) 752‑9893 for 88 York St.; or (203) 469‑3016 for 87 Foxon St.
Walmart (315 Foxon Blvd.) Visit the website here