INDIANAPOLIS — After months of saying teachers and school staff would have to wait until their age group became eligible, the state changed direction Wednesday. The Indiana State Department of Health said educators and support staff could start registering for the vaccine beginning Monday.
Here are the eligible groups:
- Teachers and staff in pre-K through high school, child care centers, Head Start and Early Start programs
- Licensed childcare providers, including center-based and family care providers
- Classroom aides, bus drivers, janitors and counselors
- Administration staff, cafeteria workers, and substitute teachers
Indiana had been relying on the federal pharmacy program to help get all teachers vaccinated. Despite previous calls by President Joe Biden to vaccinate teachers, Indiana has kept an age-based approach to eligibility targeting Hoosiers most likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19. Under the federal pharmacy program, teachers could only get vaccinated against COVID-19 at Meijer, Walmart and Kroger pharmacies. They will now be able to register at the state locations as well.
Gov. Eric Holcomb said the state was comfortable with its age-based and medical condition approach to COVID-19 vaccine eligibility, saying it was based on science. He said the federal government is now requiring states to prioritize teachers, and that is what led to the change in approach.
"That will have an impact on getting to that list of folks with comorbidities," Holcomb said. "We were using data to drive all our decisions about those who were most at risk. The administration — our federal partners — said you need to add in to any site and so we will do that."
Educators and school staff will be required to show their school ID or proof of their employment when showing up at a vaccination site.