Door jam! Unvaxxed school staff blocked
New York City school staffers will stand guard at their buildings Monday with a list of colleagues banned from entering due to defiance of the COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
Some 15,000 Department of Education employees, including about 5,500 teachers, refused to get vaccinated by Friday. The final number of those branded “noncompliant” is to be released Monday.
Meanwhile, the DOE instructed principals to prepare a list of exiled staffers marked “no entry permitted.”
“If they don’t have a vaccination card, they can’t come in the building,” a Brooklyn principal said.
Any resistance should be met firmly, the DOE says: “In the event of an escalation, and as a last resort, principals may ask for support from the [school-safety agent] assigned to the building that day.”
The DOE says it has thousands of subs ready to step in Monday.
“They’re saying there’s plenty. They’re smoking crack,” said the Brooklyn administrator. “I think it will be an all-around s--tshow.”
If workers get jabbed during the weekend, they can still come to work and be “put back on active status,” the DOE said Friday.
On Saturday afternoon, Gov. Hochul announced the state had given out 91,507 vaccine doses in the prior 24 hours — almost double the 48,015 the day before.
Unvaccinated Michael Kane, a leader of the Teachers for Choice coalition, said he plans to show up at his Queens school Monday.
“I’m not resigning. You’re refusing to let me in,” he said.
The coalition also plans a protest march Monday to City Hall.
Kane’s request for a religious exemption to vaccination was denied, but his appeal has yet to be decided.
The DOE has granted “roughly 500” medical and religious exemptions — while 3,000 teachers requested them, according to teachers-union president Michael Mulgrew.
The DOE said it has 9,000 vaccinated substitutes, 5,000 substitute paraprofessionals and “qualified” central staff ready to fill the vacancies.
About 970 school safety agents — 20 percent of the city’s 4,848 force — remained unvaccinated as of Saturday morning, the NYPD said. As a result, the number of guards at some schools may be reduced.
Nicole Broecker, an English-asa-second-language instructor at Susan Wagner HS in Staten Island, is among those who won’t be in the classroom Monday, saying she was too worried about the vaccine’s side effects to get the jab. “For me, I feel this is a risk that I’m not willing to take yet,” said Broecker, 34, adding that she had antibodies from an asymptomatic COVID-19 infection last year.
Teachers who did not get vaccinated can have a year of unpaid leave with health insurance or depart the DOE with severance.
The looming vaccine mandate — and the requirement that took effect Monday that health-care workers statewide be immunized — may have pushed thousands more New Yorkers to get the jab this week.