With the COVID-19 vaccine mandate about to go into effect, New York City school staff unions have urged the City Hall to delay the deadline lest schools face a staffing crunch.
The city wants all school staff vaccinated, with only a narrow exception for medical and religious exemptions. Yet as of Sept. 24, there are still some 26,000 who haven’t taken the shot, of which more than 10,000 are teachers, based on numbers provided by the city’s Department of Education (DOE). That means about one in five employees would be facing a year of unpaid leave or be forced to take a severance package and leave. The teachers union, United Federation of Teachers (UFT), disputed the DOE numbers, saying 90-95 percent of teachers have received the vaccine. That would leave about 4,000-8,000 unvaccinated teachers.
