NEW YORK (AP) – All New York City public school teachers and other staff members will have to be vaccinated against coronavirus, officials said Monday as the nation’s largest school system is gone. prepare to start classes next month.
The city previously said teachers, like other city employees, should be fired or given weekly tests. for the virus. The new policy marks the first vaccination term with no options for a large group of workers in the country’s most populous city, although Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday that coaches and football students, basketball and other “high-risk” sports would have to be inoculated before starting the game.
Now, some 148,000 school employees – and contractors working in schools – will have to get at least a first dose on Sept. 27, according to an announcement from the Democratic mayor and the city’s health and education departments.
“We want our schools to be extraordinarily safe,” de Blasio said. School Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter called the policy “another layer of protection for our children,” including her own 11th grader.
The city has not immediately said what the penalty will be for refusing or whether there will be exemptions. The previous vaccination or test requirement had provisions for unpaid suspensions for workers who did not comply.
The unions representing school employees said they needed answers and negotiations.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said his priority was to “keep our children safe and open schools,” but provisions for medical exceptions and other details “should be negotiated with the UFT and other unions and, if necessary, resolve them by arbitration. “
Robert Troeller, chairman of the custody union, said he was concerned the city had announced the requirement without negotiating.
Troeller said he believed approximately 60% of the 850 members of Local 891 of the International Union of Operational Engineers had received at least one first shot. But at least some who haven’t “are dead against it,” he said.
At least 63% of all school employees have already been vaccinated. This figure does not include those who could have thrown out of town.
The new requirement came about as it was fully approved by federal regulators to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, one of three vaccines available in the United States.
School begins Sept. 13 for approximately one million public school students in the city.
New York and some other cities and states have been fighting the highly contagious delta variant of the virus, pushing for more people to be inoculated.
New York City last week began requiring t vaccination tests or entering dining halls of restaurants, gyms, and many other public places, a top-notch policy that some other cities have copied since it was announced. New York State, meanwhile, announced last week that hospital and nursing home workers should be inoculated..
Vaccine mandates for teachers are quite rare so far in the U.S., although the state of Washington, for example, says teachers need to be inoculated or fired.. Vaccination or testing requirements are a bit more common, as they exist in places like Los Angeles and Chicago, which are the two largest school districts in the United States after New York.
A new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that approximately 6 out of ten Americans say that students and teachers should wear masks when they are in school and that teachers and eligible students should also be vaccinated. But Democrats and Republicans differ sharply on these issues, according to the poll.