- [Anna] A middle school in Wooster
is one of the first in Ohio
to start vaccinating 12 to 15 year old students
after the Food and Drug Administration authorized
the Pfizer vaccine for adolescents last week.
The school is partnering with Akron Children's Hospital
to administer the COVID-19 vaccines.
I'm Ideastream's Anna Huntsman
and I was there as the first group of preteens lined up
in the school's library to get the shot.
(students chatting)
While the library at Edgewood Middle School in Wooster
is normally a quiet place,
it was recently abuzz with students
waiting eagerly to get COVID-19 vaccines.
Librarian sub Denise Otto
passes out activities for the students while they wait.
- [Denise] Would you like a word search?
- [Student] No, thank you. - [Denise] Would you like one?
Trying to keep their mind off it or just to pass the time.
- [Anna] The library is the site
of one of the in-school vaccine clinics
run by Akron Children's Hospital for students age 12 to 15.
- [Nurse] Do you want me to count down for you?
- [Anna] 13-year-old 7th grader
Melia Brown is one of the first up to get the shot.
- [Melia] Getting the shot felt fine.
It wasn't scary or anything,
but I also felt like a little bit of relief.
- [Anna] Seventh graders Tommy Wilds and John Clay
are also in line and have a variety of reasons
for getting vaccinated.
- [Tommy] Playing out like with friends,
having more of a longer sport season,
going to camp, stuff like that.
- [John] So we can all just hang out
and just have fun without masks.
- [Anna] For Brown, getting the shot also means
feeling safer at home.
- [Melia] My dad is a diabetic, so we've been having
to be very careful with who we interact with
and wearing masks and everything.
- Seventh grader Kiessa Davis says
some students are not as eager.
And most of her friends aren't getting the shot.
- [Kiessa] They were kind of laughing at me
because I was getting it.
But no matter really what people say about it,
it's a vaccination.
It's going to help me not catch COVID.
So like, if you guys want to get sick,
you guys can get sick,
but I'm going to stay COVID free.
- [Anna] Akron Children's Hospital
Director of School Health, Michele Wilmoth says
they partnered with more than 20 schools
across northeast Ohio to administer vaccines
when teens 16 and up became eligible at the end of March.
So it was a natural extension of that partnership
to start including the younger kids in the program.
- [Michele] If we can do it, and we have done it in gyms,
we're doing it in a classroom,
we've done it in a small clinic,
we can do it as a drive-by, we're flexible,
and every school environment is different.
- [Anna] She says some students have declined
due to uncertainty about the vaccines
and many have expressed concern
that they were developed too quickly.
- [Michele] We go back to the science
and talk about how it appears that it was rushed
and it actually wasn't rushed.
It's just that we had plenty of resources
and government support enabled to do the same
scientific process for developing the vaccine
that we always had.
- [Anna] Wilmoth says the vaccination team
is currently giving out second doses to the older students
and offering first doses
to the younger students now eligible.
But not all districts are holding in-school clinics.
Jennifer Dodd, director of the Educational Service Center
in northeast Ohio, that serves Cuyahoga
and other Cleveland area counties,
says student turnout for the vaccines
has been lower than anticipated for the older students.
That's the main reason they are not planning
in-school clinics for this younger age group.
Instead, they'll partner with pharmacies,
such as Giant Eagle.
- [Jennifer] They will end up spending four hours
in that school district to set up,
serve those students, take down.
But those four hours instead in a store
that is in between let's say, five different districts,
you could use that four hours to get to 500 students.
And everybody, more people have access then to that site.
- [Nurse] You did awesome.
- [Anna] While some middle schoolers at Edgewood
did say they were a little nervous
about the vaccines being so new,
most said the risks outweighed the benefits.
Brown says she thinks it's imperative
for her adolescent peers to get the shot.
- [Melia] Not just protecting yourself,
but it also protects others when you're getting vaccinated
and that's pretty important.
- [Anna] She also says she's most looking forward
to having her 14th birthday party next year.
After she had to miss both her 12th and 13th
due to the pandemic.
- [Melia] I want to go to a trampoline park.
And I would like to have a sleepover.
- [Anna] A simple plan but one she'll have waited for
for nearly two years since the pandemic began.
Anna Huntsman, 90.3 WCPN.