Atlanta Public Schools responds to Gov. Kemp's criticism

ATLANTA - The chair of the Board of Atlanta Public Schools is responding to comments made by Georgia Governor Brian Kemp on Monday. Kemp publicly expressed his frustration with the school district for holding its own vaccination event, happening more than two weeks from now, as other educators took advantage of the state's mass vaccination sites.

"The Atlanta Public School's board sent me a letter demanding that teachers needed to be vaccinated when they knew dang well we couldn't do that," Kemp said. "We didn't have the supply to do that. I had said that."

The governor doesn't like the idea of waiting to vaccinate teachers. Atlanta Public Schools Board Chair Jason Esteves said that demand from a month ago is not the full story and called the governor’s comment unfortunate adding that Kemp is playing politics in the middle of a pandemic.

"He made it sound like teachers can't get vaccinated today. That we're holding teachers. And that's not the case," said Esteves.

Esteves said the district organized a mass vaccination event with the Fulton County Health Department. It’s set up to vaccinate as many as 8,000 of its teachers on March 24, 26, and 27.

"The reason that's a couple of weeks away is because you need the supply to account for thousands of teachers showing up at one time," Esteves said. "We would be happy to hold that event this weekend if the governor supplied us with the vaccine to have it this weekend."

Esteves said APS teachers can still get their vaccinations elsewhere and have been doing that at local pharmacies. Some have even gone to Alabama and Tennessee for the vaccine because they weren't eligible yet in Georgia.

Reporter: "Do you think this is just a misunderstanding with the governor and Atlanta Public Schools on what's really happening? Why would he lash out the way he would?

Esteves: "I find it interesting that he'd picked Atlanta Public Schools versus lashing out at Fulton County, for example, who's having an event the same week as we are. Or lashing out to any number of counties who are hosting mass vaccination events over the next few weeks."

Esteves said that the governor is "is playing politics to cover the fact that Georgia is near the bottom in getting people vaccinated and waited months to allow teachers to be vaccinated,"  in a tweet taking his own public shot in response to the governor's comments.

Esteves is encouraging APS teachers to go to myvaccineGeorgia.com to schedule an appointment.

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