The New York City Department of Education has axed 850 teachers and classroom aides on top of the 1,300 employees who took one year’s unpaid leave. It means that almost 2,000 school employees will have been fired for failing to comply with vaccine mandate imposed last October. Of the 1,300 who went on leave for a year, 450 agreed to show proof of vaccination by September 5. The rest are ‘deemed to have voluntarily resigned.’
The New York City Department of Education has axed 850 teachers and classroom aides on top of the 1,300 employees who took one year’s unpaid leave. It means that almost 2,000 school employees will have been fired for failing to comply with vaccine mandate imposed last October.
Of the 1,300 who went on leave for a year, 450 agreed to show proof of vaccination by September 5. The rest are ‘deemed to have voluntarily resigned.’ One teacher, Rachelle Garcia, told The Post how she had worked as a school teacher in Brooklyn for 15 years including in-person during the pandemic.
Garcia refused to get vaccinated and took leave after her requests for a religious exemption were denied. ‘I really put my eggs in one basket, hoping and praying that at the last minute our mayor would turn everything around in time for me to go back to work,’ she said.
‘I’m angry, I’m hurt, to be cast aside like I was nothing. Because I couldn’t give a proper goodbye to my students, other teachers told me they kept asking, “When is Ms. Garcia coming back?” That made me cry so much.’
Last October, dozens of New York City teachers staged a protest as then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate went into effect, spurring some 18,000 educators to get inoculated just before the deadline. Protesters held signs that read ‘Resist medical tyranny!’ and ‘My body, my choice’ in front of a Department of Education building in downtown Brooklyn.
One protester held a sign comparing anti-mandate demonstrators to Rosa Parks, the civil rights icon who refused to sit in the back of the bus in the segregated South in the mid-1950s. Almost one year on, Mayor Adams had publicly scolded office workers criticizing them for staying ‘home in your pajamas all day.’ Adams said the continuation of remote work was worsening the city’s income divide. (Daily Mail)
