The Story
New Hampshire school staff are getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Finally.
When did that happen?
The state announced that we are heading into Phase 2a of the vaccine roll-out. The governor has also significantly loosened some COVID restrictions. It’s no longer required for out-of-state visitors to quarantine before entering the state (just recommended), restaurants and bars can operate at full capacity and conduct some fun activities, and salons and barber shops can now have walk-in customers and use their waiting rooms.
How are they getting vaccinated?
K-12 school staff and child care program staff are included in the state’s Phase 2a for vaccine roll-out. People who qualify for this phase can schedule appointments for their shots on March 17th, or they can go to their sau’s clinic, if the school district is providing one.
Clinic you say?
Yep. And Bedford being Bedford is of course having a clinic for all 769 employees in the school district. This clinic will take place March 20th for the first shot and April 17th for the second shot. It’s being held in the BHS gym and put on by the Manchester Health Department.
That’s a lot of employees…
And the vaccine will be available for all of them through this clinic. This includes teachers, librarians, administrators, office staff, paraprofessionals, educational support professionals, food service personnel, bus drivers, and bus monitors. And school nurses, but they were eligible during phase 1a.
Why not just go through the state?
The state has its own process for vaccine roll out that involves navigating through an apparently very complicated and not super user-friendly website. Then you go to the vaccination site nearest to you and you stay in your car and they poke you with the needle. They keep you for 15 minutes to make sure you’re okay and then off you go. To take some of the pressure off these state-run facilities, towns are running their own clinics.
And what happens after?
The vaccine takes a few weeks to take effect after the second shot, so as of right now, we just need to keep up with the handwashing, mask wearing, and social distancing. However, there are talks of BHS moving into Phase 3 of the reopening plan at the end of the month, and having the school staff vaccinated would certainly make it safer to do so. Another new schedule, yay!
The Runaway
Roll up your sleeves and get the band-aids out because the shots are a-coming!
What to Say…
When you thought winter sports were over…
This week has actually been pretty busy with sports. On the 6th, the boys basketball team were unfortunately defeated by Trinity with a score of 39-56. On Wednesday, the boys hockey team went against Salem in the state semifinal in a very close game. Each team had 1 goal but in the end of the third period, Salem was able to take the lead and snatch the W. On a brighter note, the girls basketball team went against Concord on the 7th and pulled through victorious with a final score of 65-49. The team continued on to the semis against Portsmouth and won with 66-43 points. And in the state D1 finals yesterday, the Bulldogs beat the Birds and our girls brought home the championship over BG. They had quite the season, losing only twice to BG and Manchester Central and player of the year Isabella King reached the 1000-point milestone. Okay now we really mean it when we say that winter sports are over.
When you’re wondering what happened on our day off last week…
We’ve got election results. As of Tuesday, Melissa Stevens, who got a total of 1,462 votes, and Melinda Bator, who got 1,365 votes, will be filling the school board positions for their three year terms. Also, our new budget of 78.5 million dollars got approved with 2,220 votes for yes and 555 votes for no. You do the math, that’s not very much of Bedford that voted. In addition to the school board seats, town positions were also up for grabs. Sue Thomas, Bill Duschatko, and Kelleigh Murphy were elected onto the town council and Kenneth Peterson is the trustee of trust funds. Walter Gallo will serve a three year term for library trustee along with Jerry Hanauer who will serve a two year term as library trustee. And last but not least, Becki Kuhns is our supervisor of the checklist. The overall election had a 15.6% voter turnout, with 3018 total ballots casted. Not the greatest turnout voter turnout, but hey, we are in the middle of a pandemic.
When you’re missing your advisory…
The school board has really been having a field day with the phrase “third times a charm”, not just with the schedule, but also with the advisory activity planned by the brand new Diversity Committee. It was originally planned to take place on the first advisory day, way back in the distant past of October, but for reasons that weren’t quite clear (most likely either parental outrage or school board outrage, definitely outrage of some sort), it got postponed. Naturally, the Diversity Committee had put in a lot of work for the activity, and didn’t want it to go to waste, so the activity was given a makeover and planned to be held during the Advisory day in the not-so-distant past of January. But alas, it still did not meet the unknown standards the school board had set, and was postponed yet again. According to Jozo’s weekly principal notes, it is scheduled to take place on March 17th, this Wednesday during our advisory day. For all the Office fans out there, keep your fingers crossed that we get to have our own Diversity Day.
Things to Know
Get those prep books out…
Juniors take the SAT on March 24th.