February 10, 2021

Dear Shelby Families,

The Shelby City School District has prepared this letter for you in an effort to provide you with information that will help you to plan in advance as our school district prepares for COVID-19 vaccinations. After a great deal of planning with the City of Shelby Health Department, we are pleased to announce that the vaccination process for the staff of the Shelby City School District will begin on February 19th.

Each individual receiving the vaccine must remain in observation by a health professional for 15-20 minutes after a shot is administered. If the vaccinations were to take place during a typical school day, each school building would have to find a way to “cover” staff members while they are in the vaccination process. As you might imagine, creating a schedule to vaccinate 180 Shelby City School staff members is logistically very challenging.

Therefore, on February 19th, the Shelby City Schools, Shelby St. Mary and Pioneer Career and Technology Center will be closed as staff members from all three of these schools receive the COVID-19 vaccination at Shelby High School. However, staff members will be reporting to work on the 19th and instruction will take place remotely/online for all students. Your child’s teacher will communicate with families the schedule for the day and meals will be provided for students; more specific information pertaining to these two topics will be released in the near future. Also, our school district is scheduled to receive the COVID-19 booster (the second vaccination shot) on Friday, March 12th. This works out extremely well since the 12th is already a scheduled in-service day for the entire school district and students will not be attending school that day.

Like many things during the pandemic, this plan is subject to change if something unforeseeable were to transpire with regard to the arrival of the vaccine. While we do not anticipate that an issue will arise, if we have to change our plan we will certainly immediately communicate that information to our staff, students, and families.

Thank you for your understanding and support regarding this process. Vaccinations will help our staff members remain healthy and out of quarantine, which in turn will help our schools to remain open with face-to-face instruction for the remainder of this school year.

Sincerely,

Tim Tarvin
Superintendent, Shelby City Schools