001are live already folks ready to roll i think so um emma we're so thrilled to hear about um how successful the vaccine clinic was at the high school today what a huge wonderful thing um can you tell us what you know about it just ended not long ago can you tell us what you know about how how it went yeah so um i don't know the exact numbers that we had i i know that leading into this morning we had 24 students pre-registered and i wasn't at that clinic jennifer brown and mary o'brien and robin supernot and our admin assistant lillian were there uh but i know from the feedback that i got briefly just before i stepped onto this being there was also a great amount of walk-ins that came um i think which
002just shows how how the students are ready and and they're willing to get it which is which is a nice thing um so i think anytime we try a new first thing um sometimes there isn't as much traction as we can get but you know we're gonna do it again and we're excited about that so next time maybe there'll be more who knows that sounds um par for the course with teaching high schoolers to have so many show up walk in i think as those students talk about their experiences it's going to spread and i'm really hopeful that we can it's very good to hear you say you want to do this again especially on the heels of the next group being becoming eligible hopefully within a week it would be amazing to see another
003clinic like this happen so we can try to get more and more of our younger kids vaccinated too yes absolutely and i know that i've been in um discussions with superintendent morris and and robin with the school health and and marta in the office just really trying to figure out um how we're gonna reach all of our students who need this them everybody needs it but those students that need us the most um to be able to meet their needs and and meet them where they're at so we're trying we're in the works for it krista it's good we're all on the same page you know i just want to highlight for the community who might not know just how wonderful this was all arranged um the the clinic happened on the very heels of
004the school day ending so students were already in work many were already in person and could just stay after school for this the consent forms were given in a huge variety of languages which i think was also really an important key to the access and equity issues that we we know are important those factors along with having it in the announcements so teachers could encourage students to go sign up and remind them to go sign up and remind them they could just walk in those all i think may have contributed to to helping this be such a success so i'm i'm i'm very thrilled to hear um that we could have more of these in the future absolutely it's good stuff so emma um keeping in mind that we're the optimistic group here and if
005we do see some cdc guidance on lowering the age range what would be the turnaround time for us to be hosting another clinic that includes that age range yeah so i know i believe that the fda is scheduled to review um the pfizer i think it's wednesday or wednesday evening or but we could potentially do a clinic next friday for that age group if it is approved um we have been preparing for that announcement um it would go out in a similar pretty much the same fashion as this one went with the flyers the multiple languages for consents um we did some review of how this went this time this clinic was held in the gym we are thinking for this other age range that it might be outside under a tent this way family
006members guardians could come and be with their students um i know my son's 11 so he's just under the cusp but i but he's a he's a squishy fella he's a sensitive guy so even when he becomes 12 he certainly wouldn't want to be vaccinated without a grown up there with him so i think of those students i know certainly with that age range we have quite a spectrum of needing support and then also great independence so that's something that we are thinking of and then also wanting to make sure that the parents and guardians feel comfortable with the process so we're thinking that that would be outdoors under a tent next time jean and i think that um that was a conversation that i had with superintendent morris in terms of how long would
007we need we want to be there as soon as we can for the families and students that want it as soon as they're available so as as we have vaccine available here we are ready to go and could do it that friday all right and just as a follow-up because this might be a question that um families have is this solely for um arps families or is it open to other families what are what are the guidelines if there are any yeah right now it's open to arps families that's our primary reach i haven't discussed um because it is on school property and at the end of the school time i certainly want to be um conscientious of uh crossing lines and making sure that um people are safe there and students are safe uh
008so as of right now it's only arps students but i think this is something that we're looking to possibly continue this is a start um and and hopefully we can expand it from here steve do you have any questions um about vaccine availability for students no but i'm just glad that emma pointed out that that next age group down is a whole different ball game than doing 16 to 18 year olds because then you really do have to get into the parents and guardians caregivers grandparents thing where the 16 to 18 somewhat on their own but definitely it's a whole different ballgame with that next group down sure as um i know there have been clinics at the high school um because of the different you know the lowering of age range would there be
009any um any motivation or thought to moving it to the middle school where you'd be closer to where the kids are i know that age range that we're talking about 12 to 15 year olds spans both buildings of course um but is there is there any thought of that or because you're already you already have done it at the high school is there a reason to stay there yeah i i think we're open to seeing how the process goes um and seeing at it if this does open up to 12 and 15 maybe where are we seeing the most students from um so that's more to come with that i think we're not hard stuck on anything because as we all know as soon as we figure something out with the pandemic it changes right
010so um we're just always ready to change our processes if if it'll meet our patients and clients the best just a huge thank you for trailblazing in this area and for for making this happen i saw the announcement and i practically fell out of my chair with joy so thank you you're welcome we're happy to do it and emma um i think as as you and i know rep dom and senator comerford and others and legislators in western mass were really pushing for more regional clinics because as you know um the communities the music municipalities in the cities and towns their boards of health really know the residents better than what a large-scale facility can do particularly out here in western mass so is your senses that that is how it's going to stay i
011know that the state has closed or is in the process of closing down some of the larger the mega sites but we're going to are we going to be sticking more with the the regional and the um the town run the town board of health run um and the coalition that we have with northampton is that going to be more the format going forward yeah that's a great question gene so in the last week we've seen this dramatic shift at our clinics from being packed full every appointment um and very busy and um to all of a sudden not as high enrollment uh so we've actually and and this is when i've pulled the other municipal run [Music] vaccine clinics including uh umass as well that this is really being felt everywhere um we which
012i feel uh mixed feelings about right um it's great to see that we're not as full that maybe there isn't that need but then when i look at the data and the numbers of of the individuals that are still not vaccinated there is a need we're just not connecting with them somehow so it's this time to shift our work a little bit as of right now we are planning on continuing our clinics through the end of june um we have uh starting may 17th we're 17th or 13th one of those days we're just condensing the schedule a little bit for our hours so we won't be open for quite such a long time but we are still planning on holding clinics here through the end of june in addition to transitioning our focus to um
013more uh hard-to-reach populations doing more direct outreach um to those clients that need them all right ben this is more a question for you not that we don't love listening to you emma um so as someone that works at crocker i know that we we're now looking at tent 3.0 um so the second tent um unfortunately was a victim of of weather circumstances so can you just give an update like i know the uh one of the issues with getting the tent put up the last time the second one was having enough staff to who can put it together and that's why it was done during the school vacation week in april so given that we don't have another school vacation week until the end of june um what kind of update can you give
014us on that yes we have a bigger problem now and that's no tent so we we we'd have to go back through the uh the whole uh procurement process and and get one again and to be honest based on the timeline getting the last tense i'm not entirely sure it'll be there before the end of the school year it does it doesn't seem realistic that we could do that don't get me wrong i'm trying to schmooze my tent salesman some room sticky great guy can't get tents from missouri to here very quickly because they have to actually come on a truck as opposed to uh like ups or something like that so it's not looking good i'll say that and cracker presents we're learning this the hard way that it presents the the probably the
015greatest challenge for us because of how the wind comes through there's there's like every situated other tents you know a little bit here and there to kind of a building to block but there's just no good spot there basically all right and i know you've discussed this probably ad nauseam with their um administration but i know kindergarten screening is coming up so is there a plan for which um my understanding is it's going to be held outside um so is do we have like even like partial tents or smaller coverings okay so yeah i almost said the wrong thing there it may be possible other there's there's another school in the district that had purchased i don't know if you guys are familiar with the easy up tents so we're going to try to do
016some wheeling and dealing over there i i feel like i have pretty good uh stock over there so i might be able to get that but yeah we're going to do whatever we can do to make that happen outside kind of working with with derrick on that as we speak if it comes down to getting 10 easy up tents that's what we'll have to do oh i'm sorry this is in the spirit of problems collective problem solving ben not that you haven't thought of this yet but have you considered renting from a local rental agency they're all booked up because of graduation here and i'm guessing or or what's the status on something like that even for a short amount of time for like kindergarten screening week or something yes so it's what i'll say
017to that that and yet we've definitely kind of explored this option but it's tough but not impossible because the the other side that we have to worry about is is permitting and there may be considering what we went through i don't want to say i suffered but considering what we went through to get the permits for those tents there may be a way to expedite that process so that we can actually get one put up on site but yeah if we have to do it temporarily we'll do it that way we're trying to figure out the way the best way to do it with what we have kind of for now oh yeah if we if that doesn't work then i'll say there's a rental company around that we could use i don't want to
018plug anybody but good to know good thank you for that ben just an acknowledgment that i've been um back in the high school for a while now and my building has never looked nicer um and so i i just the facility staff are constantly working in the buildings and i just want to really acknowledge the hard work that i'm seeing it because i'm seeing them do it but i can also see the building itself is in fantastic condition and just thank you for all of that hard work from um from all of your your people who are working extremely hard to keep our buildings clean and safe and functional and just thank you for that oh that's absolutely not i would want to extend the thanks to the head custodian don davis we have ron
019gamash gary reynolds marvin stewart and i'm oh i'm not missing anyone they're short-handed right now so so they're actually they're they're doing magic over there is what's happening so yeah thank you thank you for noticing and on that end i also wanted to bring up a topic it'll be out in today's newsletter but i just wanted to just kind of kind of go out there and explain that we have changed our sanitizing practices so that we're not overusing chemicals basically at this point because of cdc guidance there's less of a concern of the fomite transmission so what we're doing now is sanitizing once a day and then we're cleaning as much as we can still but but less with uh sometimes more with neutral cleaners so i want to put that out there because that's
020one thing that our high school staff is doing very well it sounds crazy but it's actually far more labor intensive to just clean than it is to sanitize yes thank you ben for bringing that up i know you know you are aware that i've been working on the disinfectant wipe issue at the state level trying to limit the use of those in public schools but a lot of people are not aware of the difference between cleaning and disinfecting but they are two separate um two completely separate things yep absolutely and and on on the record i i just want to say um i can say it strongly i hate wipes as well and i'd like to see us use a lot less of those and more basic cleaning supplies actually so was there anything else
021yeah i didn't have anything else is it does anyone else have anything i don't have anything um steve how about you do you have anything that you um wanted to discuss no i just i'm just curious folks i know before the elementary schools got rolling you were really concerned about the buses at crocker i'm just curious how that whole thing worked out um derek shea is a master that's all i want to say uh traffic control he has it planned so well and um you know is it a little bit tight at times yes but he's got we have everybody in that building is doing whatever they can to make it run as smoothly as possible yeah i could add that like so so we've tried to monitor at random times right and and i'm
022amazed by the fact that i'm not like i've come at pickup to go inspect things i do intentionally i've gone during drop off i've never really had to like stop and wait to turn in i haven't been really like they're used there's it almost seems like there was more of a backup before the pandemic on west street at you know pick up and drop off time but but yeah derek shea is a genius it's very very meticulous very detailed and it's it's paying off dividends to anybody emma did you have any any does anyone have like a joke leading into the weekend this has been like a very intense week so ben usually i could pull one out but i'm just exhausted [Laughter] right there all right if nobody else has anything i'm ready to
023go if you guys are all right thank you all for coming talking about my favorite issue which is health and safety that's not even sarcasm it actually is kind of my favorite issue thank you everybody have a good thank you it's good to see you all again have a great bye you