County teachers and schools are cautiously optimistic about the ramifications of Gov. Tom Wolf's plan, announced Wednesday, wherein the state will provide its Johnson & Johnson one-dose COVID vaccinations to teachers and school employees.

Pennsylvania's teacher-vaccination plan places pre-kindergarten and elementary school, special education and English-as-a-second-language teachers and staff atop the priority list.

Wolf emphasized the inoculations will not be limited to teachers, and instead will include ancillary staff such as custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and administrators.

“This new single-dose vaccine adds another layer of support to get students and teachers back in the classroom,” Wolf said. “Teachers and staff who work with our children will be vaccinated.”

The state's first allocation of J&J vaccines will total 94,600 doses, the governor announced, and Pennsylvania plans to receive them this week.

This plan will not affect the allocation of Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, which are being used to immunize other priority populations such as those living or working in congregate care settings and the elderly.

Mike Manipole, a physical education and health teacher at Seneca Valley's Ryan Gloyer Middle School, said the opportunity to get a vaccine is bittersweet. It would allow him and other teachers to more safely return to the classroom, he said, but he sees a cost.

“We feel bad because the line's long,” Manipole said. “No one wants to cut in line, and I think a lot of us feel the same way there.”

At the same time, Manipole said, being vaccinated reduces the chance that he or other teachers would spread it to a student or their family, or vice-versa. “I think any of us would be devastated to find out we carried something and got someone sick because we brought it into the building,” he said.

To distribute the doses to the hundreds of thousands of teachers and school staff across the state, Pennsylvania will establish vaccine sites along with 28 intermediate units.The IUs “seem to be in the best position to actually make these decisions” about who to vaccinate, Wolf said. “They're centrally located as well, so there are a lot of reasons why the intermediate units in this case make a lot of sense.”Wayde Killmeyer, executive director of Midwest Intermediate Unit IV, which serves Butler, Lawrence and Mercer county schools, said the plan to distribute the vaccines has been “fast-moving.”“We first heard about it on Monday, and today we sent out information to our school superintendents to ascertain which of their employees want the vaccine,” he said. “We, the IU, have very little to do with it. We're mainly disseminating information and collecting information. Those decisions (about who to inoculate) are made at the district level.”The county's IU plans to distribute the vaccines at a central location, but Killmeyer said he couldn't disclose where the site would be. IU-IV will receive roughly 2,700 doses in this first shipment of vaccines, he added.“We've been told there's a much larger shipment of vaccines coming within two to three weeks, so anybody who doesn't get a vaccination in this first phase will get one in the second phase,” Killmeyer said.Wolf said the state will look into partnering with retail pharmacies to provide vaccine access to all early childhood education workers, including those not associated with an intermediate unit.David Foley, South Butler County School District superintendent, said he will encourage “all South Butler staff to take advantage of this opportunity if and when it arises,” and added the district is working on plans to give teachers the opportunity to get inoculated when the day arrives — even during a weekday or when it may cause some classroom disruption.“Please be prepared that on a moment's notice we may need to have the students work from home at some point in the near future,” he wrote in a letter to parents. “I have already asked teachers to begin thinking about a strategy to give students quality assignments that they might do at home without logging on to a livestream, so that the day will count toward our 180 days, while the teaching staff will be getting vaccinated.”

Wolf said he hopes vaccinating teachers and staff will make it easier for students to learn in person five days a week.“Getting students back into the classroom is a priority for our COVID task force,” Wolf said.The Pennsylvania Department of Education recommends districts use blended learning if they are in a county with moderate COVID-19 transmission. If a county has substantial COVID-19 transmission, PDE recommends schools use blended learning for primary and full-remote learning for secondary students.Butler County is designated as having moderate COVID-19 transmission.Although vaccinations are not required for safe school reopening, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Wolf said teachers and staff being immunized would be another layer of safety.Manipole said he is optimistic the vaccine will give him, other teachers and the students the opportunity to return to some sense of normalcy — even when “it's normalcy in a time that's not normal.”“We all want to be in the classroom with the kids,” he said. “We all want nothing more than that, and to get back to some normalcy. The kids need it, for the stability and their mental health.”