Every faculty member and staffer working within New York City’s sprawling public school system will be required to get vaccinated against COVID-19, city officials said Monday. It marks the first actual vaccination mandate implemented by New York for city workers, and will cover nearly 150,000 employees who work with roughly 1 million students. All teachers and contractors must get at least their first dose of one of the three approved coronavirus vaccines by Sept. 27. The rule follows similar ones recently launched in Washington state, Los Angeles, and Chicago. To date, at least 63 percent of school employees have been vaccinated, which doesn’t include those educators who got inoculated outside of NYC.
In a statement released Monday, United Federation of Teachers President Michael Mulgrew said: “While the city is asserting its legal authority to establish this mandate, there are many implementation details, including provisions for medical exceptions, that by law must be negotiated with the UFT and other unions, and if necessary, resolved by arbitration.”
New York City public schools reopen Sept. 13 for the 2021-2022 school year.
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