NON-VAX TEACHER SUM: 10K
Sept. 27 deadline looms
More than 28,000 city Department of Education employees — including 10,000 classroom teachers — remain unvaccinated just days before a mandated deadline.
As of Tuesday, the DOE said 87 percent of all 78,000 city teachers have had at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
The remaining 13 percent comprises roughly 10,100 holdouts — or
about six educators for each of the city’s 1,600 schools.
Of all 130,000 DOE employees — a group that includes food-service and custodial staff — only 78 percent were vaccinated as of Tuesday.
The remaining 22 percent leaves about 28,600 employees who have yet to roll up their sleeve ahead of a Sept. 27 deadline imposed by City Hall mandating all DOE staffers get the vaccine or become ineligible to work in schools.
Those who are not granted a medical or religious exemption and are still unvaccinated at the deadline can either take a year of unpaid leave or leave the DOE with a severance package.
The DOE declined to say how many teachers have applied for or received exemptions Tuesday — but teachers-union sources told The Post that only a small fraction of accommodation requests are being granted.
Asked about potential staffing shortfalls, Mayor de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Meisha Porter said they don’t expect complications.
“We are not seeing something that would have a profound impact on the teaching corps numbers for next Monday,” de Blasio said Monday.
Porter said that school workers still have a week to get their first dose and that the DOE has recently bolstered its teaching ranks.
“We think we are moving in the right direction,” she said Monday, adding that more teachers were getting jabbed each day. “We hired 5,200 new teachers — larger than we’ve hired in past years. So we feel confident we’ll be staffed.”
Porter previously has said that the city can use substitutes to address any faculty deficits that might arise next week.
Meanwhile, the state Education Department last week extended an emergency program that has allowed it to expand the teaching pool.
The initiative allows applicants “to work in New York State public schools or districts for two years while taking and passing the required exam for the certificate or extension sought,” according to the NYSED Web site.
A Manhattan Supreme Court justice last week temporarily blocked City Hall’s vaccine mandate for DOE staffers.
Justice Laurence L. Love issued a temporary restraining order stemming from a lawsuit filed by municipal unions that oppose the requirement.
But the city said that ruling won’t impact the Sept. 27 deadline because Love is set to hear arguments on the case and rule Wednesday.
De Blasio has argued that the vaccine requirement will guard against COVID-19 outbreaks and closures in city schools.