Shawnee Mission School District to begin in-school COVID-19 vaccinations Tuesday – fox4kc.com

OLATHE, Kan. The Johnson County Health Department has been working with school districts in the county to come up with a plan to vaccinate students.

The health department said Monday afternoon that since school staff have been vaccinated, its time to take the next step and vaccinate as many students age 16 and older as possible.

The vaccination process will look very different depending on which school district your students attend, according to the Johnson County Health Department.

Shawnee Mission schools will be vaccinating students during school hours starting Tuesday.

The district said it had more than 800 students express interest in receiving the vaccine. In a statement, the district said it has clinics scheduled at nine locations across the district through Friday.

This is completely voluntary, Elizabeth Holzschuh, epidemiologist with the health department, said. Families were asked last week if they would be interested in this. And then on Friday, they received an email with a consent form for that to be done during school hours.

Other school districts wont take that same approach.

Other school districts have opted not to run clinics on their own, Holzschuh said. With the number of vaccine appointments that are available in the community both at our sites at Childrens Mercy as well as our hospital partners and pharmacies, we opted to just move forward with providing information to families throughout Johnson County about the various vaccine opportunities.

If you did not receive information from your childs school about vaccines, that information can be found on the Johnson County Health Departments site. Information is also available in Spanish. Childrens Mercy Hospital also has vaccination clinics coming up in the next few weeks.

Keep in mind that each teenager will receive a Pfizer vaccine because thats the only vaccine that has Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA to be given to children as young as 16.

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Shawnee Mission School District to begin in-school COVID-19 vaccinations Tuesday - fox4kc.com