NEW YORK (WCBS 880) – As a vaccine mandate goes into effect for teachers and staff at New York City public schools on Monday, 95% of all full-time Department of Education employees are vaccinated, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
The mayor announced the figure during his daily briefing at City Hall. He said 96% of teachers and 99% of principals in the city’s public schools have been vaccinated.
Over 43,000 doses of the vaccine were given to DOE staff since the city announced the mandate back on Aug. 23, de Blasio said.
“So much has been done. Thank you to everyone who participated,” the mayor said.
Education Chancellor Meisha Ross Porter said she visited P.S. 5 in Bedford-Stuyvesant, where the school’s principal told her that 100% of staff there were vaccinated.
“It was just like a regular day for them,” Porter said. “Every single staff member in the building vaccinated. It was wonderful.”
Porter said the 95% figure means “there is an actual bubble of safety around our children in their school buildings.”
UFT president Michael Mulgrew said Monday morning that of the union’s 121,000 members, just under 4,000 had not been vaccinated. He said hundreds got the shot over the weekend—after Friday evening’s deadline—but have been allowed to work.
“Close to another 1,000 people were vaccinated over the weekend who are in schools working today,” he said.
Mulgrew said he’s confident that the schools have prepared for teacher absences because the mandate was previously delayed by the courts.
“I’m angry that they keep getting one challenge after the other after the other, but they keep rising to those challenges each and every time, so that’s a testament to them,” Mulgrew said of educators.
De Blasio scored a major legal victory on Friday when Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor declined a request to halt the city’s DOE vaccine mandate, though the lawsuit will continue through the courts.
Sotomayor's decision meant the city’s 148,000 school employees had until 5 p.m. Friday to get at least their first vaccine shot — or face suspension without pay when schools opened Monday.
While de Blasio and Porter said there would be enough substitutes to fill in on Monday, teachers and principals unions weren't quite as confident . Mark Cannizzaro, the president of the New York State Federation of School Administrators, warned of a systemwide shortage on Monday.
According to WABC, 3,700 substitute teachers were needed to fill in for the teachers.
The UFT said the greatest staff shortages are in District 75 schools, a concern because those schools have children with disabilities where extra help is needed.
Another area of concern is the number of school safety officers, which were already declining pre-pandemic amid criticism that schools were being overpoliced. About 20% of them have not been vaccinated, according to the NYPD.
Arthur Goldstein, a teacher at Francis Lewis High School in Fresh Meadows, told CBS2 that he’s worried what will happen if a fight breaks out.
“I don’t expect Bill de Blasio to come riding on a horse down Utopia Parkway to correct this situation,” Goldstein said.
Attorney Louis Gelormino, who represents teachers against the mandate, told 1010 WINS many who are opposed are pregnant or nursing and torn about the decision.
“They’re upset and they’re facing a very, very, very difficult choice— either do something they don’t believe in or lose their jobs,” Gelormino said.
Gelormino said it’s unfair that the unvaccinated teachers don’t have a testing option.
“The New York City school teachers are not asking for anything extraordinary. They’re asking to be put in the same position as the rest of the school teachers throughout New York State...and just be allowed a testing option,” Gelormino said.
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