CONTRIBUTED PHOTO Paraeducator at Fisher Elementary School Ann Soetenga gets her first COVID-19 vaccine dose.

Teachers and staff at Marshalltown Community School District will receive their second doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, which will temporarily move classes to remote learning on March 29.

Administering the second doses on March 26 and March 27, teachers and staff are being given 48 hours to recover in case they experience any side effects.

West Liberty High School was forced to cancel school last Monday due to a staff shortage after their staff received their second round of COVID-19 vaccines last Saturday.

“In order to avoid the possibility of having to cancel school similar to what happened at West Liberty this past week, we just figured we would pre-plan to hold an asynchronous remote learning day,” Superintendent Theron Schutte said.

A day of remote learning was not necessary after the first dose in February, as the first dose for the vaccinations took place on a Thursday and Friday which gave the teachers the weekend to recover.

Marshalltown School District Lead Nurse Stacey Tool-Crawford said based on data the school district has seen around the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, potential side effects are more likely to be significant after the second dose.

The most common potential side effects is pain at the site of injection with other most commonly reported side effects being headache, fatigue, dizziness, chills and nausea. Side effects are typically short-lived, generally lasting from one to two days.

An internal survey by the school district found 81 percent of staff wanted the COVID-19 vaccine, and Tool-Crawford said the school district is at nearly 81 percent of their staff vaccinated.

“I think that’s pretty impressive for the size of our district,” Tool-Crawford said.

She said some of the staff who didn’t want the vaccine originally have since changed their minds, and the district has been able to accommodate them.

The school district is legally permitted to require the COVID-19 vaccine, but chose to make the vaccine voluntary.

Vaccinations have not changed the school’s COVID-19 mitigation efforts. Vaccinated staff will still wear masks and follow social distancing guidelines.

“We’ll encourage that throughout this whole process, even after we’re vaccinated to be safe,” Tool-Crawford said.

She said there is not enough research to determine whether or not a vaccinated person could be an asymptomatic spreader of COVID-19. Based on preliminary trials, data for the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine shows it’s 94 percent effective in preventing COVID-19.

Schutte said the district is anticipating the vaccine to be available for students by late fall to early winter of this year, and anticipates the continuation of mitigation strategies to continue through the first semester of next school year.

Contact Trevor Babcock at 641-753-6611 or tbabcock@timesrepublican.con.