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NEW YORK (CBSNew York) – The New York City mandate requiring all public school employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 went into effect on Monday.
Mayor Bill de Blasio said 95% of full-time workers have received at least one dose of the vaccine.
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“To date, all employees in our 1,600 schools are vaccinated, and this is unprecedented,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio, who was confident in the way the city is handling its mandate to vaccinate school workers. .
“Ninety-five percent of all full-time DOE employees are vaccinated, 96% of all teachers, 99% of all principals,” de Blasio said.
About 8,000 of the 148,000 DOE employees, 3,000 of 78,000 teachers and 12 of 1,600 principals are not vaccinated. Most have been replaced with substitutes, CBS2’s John Dias reported.
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Unvaccinated teachers who were turned away from their schools joined a rally against the mayor’s vaccination mandate. Although they make a lot of noise, they are very much in the minority, reported Jessica Layton of CBS2.
“I refused to be vaccinated,” said Stefanie Deliteris, a paraprofessional.
Deliteris is now feeling the consequences of refusing the shot.
“My husband is a caretaker and we both lost our jobs. He worked throughout the pandemic, cleaning every COVID room, ”Deliteris said. “Now we’re both out of work. We were essential last year and now we’re all zeros this year.
Thousands of other DOE staff who will not get vaccinated are feeling his frustration.
“I feel very insulted. For seven years I have been working as a teacher and I really enjoy my job. I didn’t want to leave and I have to leave because of my choice, ”said teacher Michellene Barrett.
Watch John Dias report
Even before Bronx High School history teacher Stephanie Edmonds tried to show up for work, she knew she would be told to go home. She’s been fighting the vaccine rules for weeks.
“I sent out a lesson today for whoever will be out there to teach the kids,” Edmonds said.
Although the mayor said nearly 1,000 teachers were ultimately vaccinated over the weekend, the city had thousands of vaccinated replacements ready to step in as of Monday morning.
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Students at New Dorp High School in Staten Island will miss 20 of their regular staff.
“One of the advantages of being the largest district in the country is that we have the largest village of dedicated adults ready to step up for our youth,” said Chancellor of Schools Meisha Porter.
Contributing to the overwhelming majority of DOE’s vaccinated staff, the vaccination rate at community colleges in Lower Manhattan is 100%.
“I am really very happy that this school year we can continue to grow and be a little normal,” said Joshua Ng, who teaches science in eighth grade. “All that is normal is in a pandemic.”
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Unvaccinated staff members were all welcome at the rally, but others watching the protest couldn’t understand why they were fighting so hard against something that could ultimately keep them and their students alive.
“To get us back to any kind of normalcy, the vaccine is the way for me to go,” said a female nurse.
Michael Mulgrew, president of the United Teachers’ Federation, said the last-minute rush could have been avoided had the vaccine’s mandate been announced this summer.
“Chaotic would be the right way to put it,” Mulgrew said.
Mulgrew wouldn’t say if he’s confident that substitute teachers will successfully fill in the gaps. It is particularly concerned about the staffing of schools in District 75 of the city, which serve students with special needs.
“Where we have some of our toughest students who really need a lot of help and support… that was the area of concern throughout Saturday and yesterday… especially at the southern tip of Staten Island,” Mulgrew said.
The lack of school security guards is also a major problem – 745 are still unvaccinated – so some schools only have one.
“We were missing nearly 1,500 school safety officers at the start of the school year. So that only made the whole problem we were already facing worse, ”Mulgrew said.
Although the deadline for the vaccination is Friday, the union said staff still have time to get vaccinated and keep their jobs. But this offer will not be on the table forever.
According to the union, 3,000 members have submitted exemptions. About 1,000 have been approved, mostly for medical reasons.
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John Dias and Jessica Layton of CBS2 contributed to this report.
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