In remarks to the nation last week, Mr. Biden called for every school district in the country to host at least one pop-up vaccination clinic, and many schools and school districts — particularly those in urban areas — are already doing so. The Covid Collaborative, a bipartisan group of politicians and policymakers, has also been working with the White House to promote school-based clinics.
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But some school officials are finding that persuading parents to get their students vaccinated is a difficult task.
The school district in Anchorage, Alaska, has been a national leader in encouraging vaccination; a clinic it hosted last year at the district headquarters drew 29,000 people between January and April, many of them older adults eager for their shots, the district superintendent, Deena Bishop, said in an interview. But when Anchorage set up clinics in schools over the summer, the demand was much lower; those clinics vaccinated only about 30 students a day, Dr. Bishop said.
Other superintendents said school-based vaccine clinics, which typically partner with local pharmacies or county health departments, may be a hard sell in areas of the country where there is already resistance to vaccination.
“For people who are for it, it’s an easy one — they support vaccination as a strong strategy to fight Covid, and they don’t see any issue with the use of public space,” said Kristi Wilson, the superintendent of the Buckeye Elementary School District, just outside Phoenix, who recently completed a term as president of AASA: The School Superintendents Association, which represents 13,000 school superintendents across the country.
“But the other side I’m hearing is that, ‘Where do you draw the line? Who’s going to administer it? Even if public health does it, is it an appropriate use of space?’ If you have a community that is very anti-vaccination, how do you manage that?” she said.
