I was very excited to enroll my daughter in preschool in the fall. However, it has come to my attention that many of the early childhood education centers in Addison County do not have 100% vaccination rates among their staff. This is very upsetting because as parents of young children (who are too young to be vaccinated) we are reliant on the adults in their lives to help protect them from getting COVID.

And while I realize they have a low chance of dying (if they are lucky like my daughter and don’t have underlying health conditions), there are still real health risks for children (e.g. a recent article from The New York Times titled “This Is Really Scary: Kids Struggle With Long COVID”). It would be very helpful if there were guidelines for preschool and childcare centers regarding staff vaccination, and disclosure of percent of staff vaccinated, so that we would be able to feel safe sending our children to school.

I would also like for the state to, at a minimum, provide scientifically based guidance about unvaccinated teachers being masked and getting regular testing.

Until the state can provide these guidelines, I am writing to implore early childhood teachers to please, please, please get the vaccine! You already do such a great job at keeping our kids safe in other ways, please do this one more thing.

Liv Herdman

Middlebury