TOPEKA, Kan. – Kansas will put a priority on vaccinating teachers and other school staff against COVID-19 so that K-12 students across the state can resume in-person classes as quickly as possible, Gov. Laura Kelly said Wednesday.
The Democratic governor’s announcement came a week after she told leaders of the Republican-controlled Legislature that 60% of the state’s 286 school districts had started inoculating teachers. The state’s public schools have about 72,000 staff members, including 34,000 certified teachers.
Kelly said the state will be able to inoculate school staff because it expects the federal government to start next week to ship an additional 25,000 vaccine doses a week. She said the federal government has promised Kansas a total of 115,000 doses a week.
