The Post Primary Teachers Association wants more detail on how a vaccine mandate will work in schools.
Everybody who wants to remain in the education sector, and who hasn't already, is in for a couple of short, sharp jabs before year's end.
It will be mandatory for education staff to be fully vaccinated to work in schools from 1 January.
PPTA president Melanie Webber says the sector remains eager to follow the government's lead on the new vaccine mandate, even while she says her organisation would appreciate a little more information about how it will work.
Specifically she's not sure about how to manage a shortage of available teachers with some unable to go to schools if they refuse to be vaccinated.
"In Tāmaki Makaurau there were projections that we're about 250 teachers short next year," she told Morning Report.
"Now, I'm not saying that's a reason not to do this, but I'm saying it's a reason to have a really good hard look at the teacher shortages that we already had."
Webber said for some schools maybe distance teaching would be the answer.
"If you have only one physics teacher in your school, and they decide they don't want to be vaccinated, there are going to be difficulties there. So, we will need to look at online models possibly."
She said there would be some teachers surprised to find they are not exempt from the vaccination order.
"I think there are a lot of people who think they may be exempt who are not exempt.
"To be clear, we're very much in favour of this recommendation that teachers are vaccinated. Secondary schools in particular are really large workplaces, so making sure that everyone is as safe as possible is really important to us.
"It's just more about that detail around how this is going to be managed."
