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Classroom doors open Monday for about one million New York City public school students as part of the nation’s largest in-person learning experience during the coronavirus pandemic.
The start of the school year coincides with several milestones in the city’s pandemic recovery that depend on vaccination mandates.
Almost all of the city’s 300,000 employees will have to be back at work, in person, on Monday as the city ends remote work. Most will either need to be vaccinated or undergo weekly COVID-19 tests to stay in their jobs.
Students, teachers, administrators and counselors listen to Principal Malik Lewis, foreground, second from left, give them a history lesson at West Brooklyn Community High School on October 29, 2020, in New York City.
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The city was also due to start enforcing rules requiring workers and customers to be vaccinated to enter restaurants, museums, gyms and places of entertainment. The vaccination requirement has been in place for weeks, but had not been implemented before.
There will also be a vaccine mandate – with no testing option – for teachers, although they have until September 27 to receive their first vaccine.
Unlike some school districts across the country which still offer online education to families who prefer it, New York City officials say there will be no distance option despite the persistence of the variant. Highly transmissible delta of COVID-19.
New York City has kept schools open for most of the past school year, with some students doing a mix of distance and in-person education, but the majority of families have chosen distance learning. This choice will not be available this year, insisted Mayor Bill de Blasio.
“Our children have to be in school and it is incredible that some children have not seen the inside of a classroom for a year and a half,” the mayor said Thursday. “It has huge consequences, including health care consequences. The healthiest and best place for children is school.”
Masks will be mandatory for all students and staff, as is the case with schools in New York State.
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There is no vaccination mandate for students aged 12 and over eligible for vaccines, but vaccinations will be required to participate in contact sports like football and basketball as well as some extracurricular activities like orchestral practice and theater. About two-thirds of the city’s 12 to 17-year-olds are currently vaccinated.
In the United States, anyone 12 years of age and older is eligible for COVID-19 vaccines. The Food and Drug Administration chief of vaccines said last week that he hoped children as young as 5 would be eligible to be vaccinated by the end of 2021.
De Blasio, a Democrat in his final months in office, has insisted that masks, cleaning protocols and random COVID-19 tests make school buildings safe. But it has been rejected both by parents who want their children to come home and by unions representing teachers and other school staff.
One person who called WNYC on the Mayor’s weekly radio show Friday said she was “absolutely beside myself for fear of sending my 6-year-old to school.”
“We believe this is an extremely safe environment,” replied de Blasio. “We have proven it and the most important thing is that our children have to come back.”
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When asked if some students might just disappear from the system because their virus-wary parents wouldn’t send them to school, de Blasio said that “the vast, vast majority” of parents would take their children to school. ‘school.
The city has been in arbitration with the United Teachers’ Federation, which represents nearly 80,000 teachers in the city’s public schools, over issues such as accommodation for teachers who say they have health issues that prevent them from attending. get vaccinated.
The arbitrator ruled Friday night that the city must offer out-of-class homework for teachers who are not vaccinated due to medical and religious exemptions.
“As a group, teachers have overwhelmingly supported the vaccine, but we have members with health problems or other reasons to refuse vaccination,” UFT President Michael Mulgrew said in a press release. .
Meanwhile, other municipal workers’ unions have opposed the mayor’s decision to order employees to return to their workplaces, saying if they do their work remotely well, they should be allowed to continue. .
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The municipal labor committee, a union coordinating group representing municipal workers, has also threatened legal action if the mayor decides to eliminate the option of weekly virus testing for workers who choose not to be tested. vaccinate.
And a group of restaurant and bar owners sued the vaccination requirement for indoor meals and employees, claiming the city had exceeded its legal authority.
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