You are reading

Public School Teachers and Staff Must Get Vaccinated by End of Friday: Mayor


Mayor Bill de Blasio and Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter read to a first grade class at P.S. 377 in Ozone Park, Queens (Ed Reed/ Mayoral Photography Office)

Sept. 28, 2021 By Allie Griffin

New York City public school teachers and staff must get at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Tuesday.

De Blasio moved the deadline to 5 p.m. Friday after a federal appeals court lifted an injunction that had temporarily halted the city mandate that was set to take effect Monday.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit granted the temporary injunction last week ahead of the city’s original Monday deadline. The court, however, ruled to lift the injunction Monday evening.

“We readjusted the timing because we had the delay in court,” de Blasio said. “We’re giving all of our employees up until Friday at 5 o’clock [to be vaccinated].”

As of Monday morning, 87 percent of all Department of Education employees have had at least one dose of the vaccine — leaving 13 percent who still need to get a shot or face unpaid leave.

“For anyone who has not gotten a dose by Friday at 5 p.m., … we’re going to then assume you’re not coming to work Monday morning and we will immediately find a substitute,” de Blasio said. “Then those folks [who chose not to get vaccinated] will go on leave without pay.”

The percentage of DOE employees’ vaccinated, however, is higher among teachers and principals. According to the latest DOE numbers, 90 percent of teachers and 97 percent of principals have gotten at least one shot.

About 7,000 of the more than 130,000 DOE staffers—a group that includes food service and custodial workers—got vaccinated just last Friday and Saturday in anticipation of the mandate, de Blasio said.

The mayor said the numbers are encouraging.

“For everyone — especially for parents and kids — this should be a real sense of relief to see the numbers are already so high,” he said. “That says great things about our ability to have a safe school system and keep everything moving really, really well for our kids.”

Union leaders, however, have called on the mayor to push the mandate deadline back even further as they worry about potential staffing shortages.

email the author: [email protected]
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade honors fallen heroes

May. 30, 2023 By Gabriele Holtermann

Rain or shine, the Little Neck-Douglaston Memorial Day Parade, touted as the largest Memorial Day parade in the United States, has been a staple of the quaint Queens neighborhoods since 1927. Thousands lined the parade route under clear blue sky along Northern Boulevard from Jayson Avenue in Great Neck to 245th Street in Douglaston on May 29 to honor the brave men and women who answered their call to service and made the ultimate sacrifice while defending their country.

New York Hall of Science awarded federal funding for project on artificial intelligence

New York Hall of Science (NYSCI) will play a key role in the future of artificial and natural intelligence after U.S. Rep. Grace Meng announced that the institution in Flushing Meadows Corona Park has been awarded nearly a half-million dollars in federal funding from the National Science Foundation over the next five years.

NYSCI will be part of a $20 million initiative led by Columbia University to establish an AI Institute for Artificial and Natural Intelligence (ARNI), an interdisciplinary center that will bring together several top research institutions to focus on a national priority: connecting the major progress made in AI systems to the revolution in understanding the brain.