By Brooke Schultz

WOODSIDE — Their own families, their students, their students’ families, themselves. When teachers were vaccinated at Polytech High School Thursday afternoon, they described feeling relieved for all of the above.

“We’re back in the classroom hybrid next week, and I work with pretty needy kids. So I know I’m going to end up being closer to them,” said Amy Murray, a teacher at William Henry High School in Dover. “I’m a single mom. My kids are teenagers, but if something happened to me — if I got sick or even worse, it would be really hard on them. That’s definitely why I’m relieved.”

Ms. Murray was among 200 educators who were vaccinated Thursday. She and her peers waited along one of the walls, seated apart, after getting their vaccines. Other educators waited for their turn across the room.

By the end of the weekend, the Department of Education will have vaccinated about 1,200 of the eligible teachers.

DOE will hold drive-thru clinics, have multiple school vaccination sites and set up pharmacy vaccination appointments. The operation of DOE’s vaccination sites will remain dependent on the state’s vaccine supply.

Vaccinations efforts will be split into three risk-based categories.

Stage one includes those who meet one or more of the following: over 65, with high-or medium-risk chronic medical conditions and/or who work with special populations and have limited opportunity to follow public health measures, such as maintaining physical distance and wearing face coverings.

For Karl Haye, a teacher at Las Americas ASPIRA Academy in Newark, it was reassuring. Mr. Haye had COVID-19 in November. He said it wasn’t a bad case of the virus, but said that the recovery has been long. He still gets winded quicker than he used to and finds himself sleeping more.

“Aside from that, I’ve made adjustments to it,” he said.

Getting the vaccine was “a confidence builder.”

He said his experience registering to attend the vaccination clinic was easy. He was registered within two minutes.

“The longest time I’ve spent [in the process] so far is this, sitting here, waiting,” he said.

As she spent her 15 minutes waiting, Beth Chapman, a Red Clay School District speech therapist, said that Thursday felt like a “big step.”

“I work with kids close up and I work with a lot of different kinds of kids. This is going to be huge for me,” she said.

Ms. Chapman also has a new granddaughter, who she has hardly gotten to see during the pandemic because she works in a school.

“I feel like maybe I might be able to get to hold my granddaughter a little bit more,” she said. “We have a lot of families, we have a lot of teachers, a lot of students that are sick. So if this starts to incrementally cut at the spread, the sooner the better for everybody.”

It’s been an unusual year for educators. Schools statewide have had the green light — for the most part — to utilize hybrid instruction since August, though an increase in cases or operational strain has closed districts to in-person learning at different periods throughout the state.

Matt McClain, a teacher in the Smyrna School District, was out on paternity leave in the fall. Since his return to teaching, he described the process as smooth, given the circumstances.

“I can’t speak for every school, but my school, we take a lot of precautions,” he said. “I feel safe in there. I know our custodians — every time I look up, they’re wiping down hallways and doors and things like that. It eases your mind.”

The shot helps.

“It feels good. It’s not completely a relief, but it’s a start,” he said.

As the educators arrived for their time slot, Deja Boucher and Jennifer Johnson, students in Polytech’s nursing program, were there to hand out information on the Pfizer vaccine.

Assisting with the event counted toward their clinicals and was hands-on experience. While helping with patient education, they were able to see allergic reactions (none so far, they noted) and what the rollout of a new vaccine targeting a new virus looked like.

Ms. Boucher called it “history in the making.”

“We’re getting the vaccine out there,” Ms. Johnson said. “That’s what we need to do.”