200 seniors were vaccinated on April 16 after District 99 sent out an email giving students an opportunity to receive the Pfizer vaccination at Fenton high school.

“I actually think it’s very progressive for the school to give the students and their families so many ways to get vaccinated. I feel like our school always does it’s best to be as aware and as educated as possible and that’s something I’ve always admired,” senior Arielle Williams said.

The opportunity for DGS students to be vaccinated arose when Fenton high school had extra doses of the vaccine from the clinic they were hosting; Fenton high school reached out to all school districts in Dupage county offering vaccinations to any students who could sign up in time. Superintendent Hank Thiele detailed why he thinks it’s important to provide students with a way to be vaccinated.

“The more people that get vaccinated the quicker we can move past COVID-19 – this includes our students. I think we are all ready for that to happen and some normalcy to return,” Thiele said.

Thiele continued, talking about how District 99 will plan on continuing to give students vaccination opportunities in the future.

“We will eventually have a clinic with vaccines provided by the DuPage County Health Department. This will likely occur over the summer,” Thiele said.

One of the seniors who were vaccinated, Alice Murphy, shares her experience as positive when receiving the vaccine at Fenton high school.

“The experience of getting vaccinated was better than I’d thought it would be. The staff at Fenton were so nice and the person who gave me my actual shot was amazing. I was just so happy to finally be on the way to [being] fully vaccinated,” Murphy said.

Similar to Murphy, Williams had a great experience at Fenton high school and was surprised by how the shot wasn’t painful.

“I expected [the vaccine] to kind of hurt since a lot of medicines you receive in shot form are so thick, I was expecting to at least feel the vaccine going in. But I didn’t feel it at all. The day after although my arm was extremely sore,” Williams said.

While Murphy’s main purpose for being vaccinated was to contribute to the pandemic coming to an end, she explains how receiving the vaccine is also necessary for her to attend college in the fall.

“It is also very important that I get vaccinated because I’m most likely going to university overseas, and being vaccinated makes it easier to travel there and keep myself, and others, safe,” Murphy said.

For more information about more upcoming COVID-19 vaccinations stay tuned for emails from District 99 or look on the district website.