Most employees of the Juneau School District are fully vaccinated for COVID-19, according to a report Superintendent Bridget Weiss submitted to the Juneau School District Board of Education, and most of the cases in the district were in elementary schools where students are unvaccinated.
“We are highly vaccinated,” Weiss wrote in her report to the JSD Board of Education. Exact numbers were supposed to be given at the board’s Tuesday meeting but technical difficulties prevented Weiss from sharing that information.
Teachers and staff are required to be tested weekly, School Board President Elizabeth Siddon told the Empire by phone Wednesday, but they can opt-out of the testing if they’re vaccinated. Several vaccinated staff members have been testing regularly, Siddon said, as an extra precaution.
According to the report, fewer than 80 staff members were still going through the process of verifying their vaccination status out of a total of more than 700.
[City reports 87 new COVID cases, mostly 18 and younger]
Vaccines are not yet available to children under 12 but students are being regularly tested and classrooms quarantined when necessary, Weiss’s report says. At least half of JSD’s COVID-19 cases were in elementary schools in August, September and so far in October.
Certification for Juneau’s recent municipal elections came late Tuesday evening but it arrived to time to allow the school board’s newly elected members Will Muldoon and Amber Frommherz to be sworn in. The two outgoing members, Kevin Allen and Paul Kelly, were given honors at Tuesday’s meeting and thanked for their service on the board.
With the new members in place, board officers could be chosen and Siddon was unanimously re-elected as President.
• Contact reporter Peter Segall at psegall@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SegallJnuEmpire.
