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Private school staff gotta vax
Mayor de Blasio announced a new mandate Thursday requiring staffers at city private schools to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
The mandate, which city officials say will cover 56,000 employees across 938 independent and parochial schools, comes after city officials instituted vaccine requirements for all municipal employees. Employees at childcare centers and charter schools are also subject to vaccine mandates.
Private school staffers will be required to get their first dose of the vaccine by Dec. 20, and city officials said they will work with the schools in the weeks leading up to the mandate to make sure the shots are readily available.
“The health and safety of our children is paramount and we are extending our vaccine mandate to ensure all schools are protected from COVID-19,” said Health Commissioner Dave Chokshi. “All teachers and school staff should get vaccinated as soon as possible. The COVID-19 vaccines are safe, effective and save lives.”
It wasn’t immediately clear Thursday how much legal authority city officials have to impose the mandate on private employers, or how they will enforce it. The health department did not publish the full text of the order Thursday evening.
Leaders of some parochial and religious schools — which enroll the majority of the estimated 250,000 city students in private schools — began pushing back on the mandate Thursday evening.
Rabbi David Zwiebel, the executive vice president of the major orthodox Jewish group Agudath Israel and the chairman of the Committee of New York City Religious and Independent School
Officials, wrote a letter Thursday to de Blasio voicing his opposition.
“Many of our schools view Covid vaccination as a matter most appropriately left to individual choice, not governmental fiat. This is an area where government should be using its bully pulpit to persuade, not its regulatory arm to coerce,” Zwiebel wrote, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Daily News.
He warned that staff departures following the enforcement of a mandate could force schools to “close because of the severe shortage of teachers.”
“The Catholic schools and academies throughout Brooklyn and Queens today join as part of a coalition of religious and independent schools throughout New York City asking the mayor and health commissioner to reconsider ,” said Thomas Chadzutko, the Brooklyn Diocese superintendent.