Good afternoon Elm Hill and Union Street families,
This is Dr. McLaughlin, your Superintendent of Schools.
As we move to reopen Elm Hill School on Monday, we continue to try to provide you easy means to get your student vaccinated, so that we can have a safe and consistent learning environment for all students.
As you are probably aware, the CDC has approved the Pfizer vaccine for our 5-11 year old population. The Pfizer vaccine requires two doses. The Vermont Department of Health will be holding clinics aimed at our 5-11 year old children on:
December 14th - 1st dose Clinic
9-11 Elm Hill
1-3 Union Street
January 4th - 2nd dose Clinic
9-11 Elm Hill
1-3 Union Street
IMPORTANT: Please note that these clinics will not appear and be selectable on the Vermont Department of Health site until Monday morning at 8AM. While the clinics will be hosted in our school gymnasiums, they are not exclusively for Springfield students as state officials will not conduct closed clinics. This basically creates a race for the slots that we have available. If you want to have your child vaccinated, you need to complete two separate steps.
Your first step is to make sure that your child has an account on the Vermont Department of Health site. This should be done before Monday.
Then the next step happens Monday morning. You’ll need to log on to the department’s site. At 8 AM, the clinics at Elm and Union will appear and be selectable for any Vermont youth registered on the site. There will be 75 appointment slots per school and those slots will be given out on a first-come first-serve basis.
On the day of the clinics, registered students will come to the gymnasium by class for their vaccine, and staff will be present to support them. While parents may come to be with their students at the time of vaccination, we discourage this practice as much as possible as we have concerns about putting too many people in the gym at the same time. We appreciate you considering this.
Alright, I am sending you details about how to register in an email that I am sending in conjunction with this robocall. (SEE BELOW IN THIS EMAIL.)
Please call your school nurse if you have any questions.
Thanks for your time and I hope you and your family have a wonderful weekend.
Registration Instructions:
- Families wishing to register their child should go to the following link https://vermont.force.com/events/s/selfregistration. If your child has been tested for COVID-19 through the health department, they should already have a registration profile on this site. If they don’t have a registration profile, families will need to create one. Parents who have an account should link their children as dependents by going to their own account rather than creating a separate registration with each child. This will negate the need for a separate, personal email per child.
- Parents who have no internet access can call to register their child at the following number: 855-722-7878 trained operators will go through the registration questions with you.
- Here is the fact sheet about the Pfizer vaccine for 5-11 year olds: Pfizer vaccine information
Informational forums on pediatric vaccines are available through the American Academy of Pediatrics for Vermont (AAPVT.) These are accessible at the following website: http://www.aapvt.org/news/join-us-conversation-about-covid-19-vaccines-children