While the COVID surge continues in January 2022, we want to reflect on where we were a year ago: playing a role in a giant regional effort to get educators vaccinated as quickly as possible. The following article is from Clackamas ESD’s 2021 annual report. 

When the first COVID vaccines were approved, and Gov. Kate Brown announced educators would receive priority, Clackamas ESD helped lead a herculean regional effort to get COVID shots in the arms of tens of thousands of teachers and other school staff in a matter of weeks.

We actually laid the groundwork for this effort in December 2020, when Gladstone School District Superintendent Bob Stewart convened Clackamas ESD leaders, and other key regional school and health care officials, in a series of forward-thinking vaccine planning discussions. Together with the Oregon Health Authority, this group created a large-scale model for delivering vaccines to metro-area educators.

Pam Bonner, Clackamas ESD’s executive operations coordinator, devoted nearly every waking hour for two months to help manage the complex effort, in partnership with local school district leaders and two other regional ESDs. Collectively, the three regional ESDs delivered nearly 6,000 hours of staffing support at the mass vaccination site at the Oregon Convention Center. Clackamas ESD provided six staff members to work eight-hour shifts each day for eight weeks. Several of our partner districts also helped staff the vaccination clinic.

In addition, we coordinated with the Clackamas County Department of Public Health to make sure extra vaccination doses at local clinics didn’t go to waste. We established a short-notice on-call program for staff and families, and personally reached out to those on the list when there was a vaccination opening at a moment’s notice.

The result? Between the mid-January 2021 project launch through early March, we helped vaccinate close to 70 percent of the total tri-county educator workforce of nearly 70,000 people.

Throughout the year, we continued acting as a key liaison for our regional districts to the county’s public health department and several state agencies, ensuring our districts had the latest information about constantly changing COVID processes and protocols, and got their questions answered in a timely way. We also served as a point of distribution for personal protective equipment secured by the Oregon Department of Education, coordinating delivery of truckloads of masks, shields, gloves and hand sanitizer to our districts.

Below is one of many notes Pam Bonner received from our school districts, thanking her for her help in coordinating the regional vaccine effort:

Pam,

I just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you for your commitment and dedication to serving on our great team and supporting all of our school district “point people” as we navigate the vaccination process together. I am convinced the communication, organization, and execution would not be as sound without your leadership in this project. Thank you again for all you are doing!

Ryan Carpenter
Superintendent
Estacada School District