Just when it appears as though bipartisanship is officially dead in South Carolina, Senators Shane Massey and Gerald Malloy prove us wrong. With the introduction of S.516, the Republican and Democrat put people over politics as they seek to address educators’ concerns regarding the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan.
In his annual State of the State address last month, Governor Henry McMaster requested the return of educators to classrooms and made the case for five-day face-to-face instruction, citing students’ loss of “significant learning progress” as a result of virtual learning.
SC for Ed, a teacher advocacy organization, critiqued the Governor’s request in a statement released last week. The organization argued that if schools are to open responsibly, then teachers and school personnel must be prioritized in the state’s vaccination rollout. Currently, South Carolina is in Phase 1A of vaccine distribution – which now includes those sixty-five years and older – while teachers remain in Phase 1B and can expect to receive the vaccine in early spring under the current timeline.
Upon passage, Massey and Malloy’s joint resolution would require DHEC to identify teachers and school support staff as “mission-critical workers” and thus qualify them for vaccination in Phase 1A of the state’s COVID-19 vaccination plan. Under the resolution’s amendment, the vaccines would be allocated to teachers from a surplus of 37,800 Moderna vaccines that were initially distributed to long-term care facilities.
The resolution represents exactly what it looks like when government actually works: not only would this bill address the urgent need of South Carolinians, but it would do so in a swift, bipartisan manner.
It would serve the legislature well to look upon the collaboration between Massey and Malloy on S.516 as a model for good governance, and it would serve our state even better to pass the resolution and promote the safe reopening of our public schools.