NYC Childcare, After-School Workers Must Get Vaccinated: Mayor

NEW YORK, NY — Thousands of public childcare and after-school staff will be added to the city's vaccination mandate as families head back to classrooms next week, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced.

City-contracted childcare and after-school staff previously exempt from the vaccine mandate for school employees will now be required to get their first dose by Sept. 27, the mayor said Thursday.

The mandate will apply to those working at the city's pre-K, 3-K, home-based childcare and after-school or early-learn programs, de Blasio said.

"All of these are so important to supporting our young people and we want them to be very safe environments," he said at a press conference.

The new vaccine requirement comes as the city prepares to welcome back all of its public school students to classrooms on Monday for the first time since the coronavirus crisis began.

The mayor has long-described the plan to keep students safe during in-person learning as a "step ladder" approach, meaning new layers of protection against COVID-19 may be added throughout the year as health officials evaluate safety practices.

The latest mandate comes after discussions with childcare providers who said requiring vaccines would help staff and families feel safe, de Blasio said.

"We continue to look at the overall situation and see where we think we can add to our strategy effectively," he said Thursday. "More and more of the people who run the facilities recognize the mandates are going to give confidence to everyone."

The mayor has so far resisted the idea of extending the vaccine mandate to students who are eligible to get the shot, arguing it may alienate families who are hesitant about the vaccine from sending their children back to school.

Just over 65 percent of those over the age of 12 were vaccinated as of Wednesday, a number officials are hoping to boost by putting vaccine sites 700 schools with children eligible for the shot.

For staff, it is not yet clear how childcare and after-school employees will react to the vaccine mandate, which other school staff have pushed back on. De Blasio said Thursday that the city will negotiate about the requirements with any relevant labor unions, though, unlike other public school staff, not all employees in city-contracted sites are unionized.

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