You are reading

52 Percent of NYC Public School Students Are Fully Vaccinated, Check Your School’s Rate Here.

School vaccination rates across NYC vary from only 12% to 94%, data released Friday show. Above, James Gisondi brought his 12-year-old daughter Johanna Fonte to get vaccinated at Lehman High School in the Bronx. Christina Veiga / Chalkbeat


This article was originally published by Chalkbeat New York on Feb. 28
BY

Just over half of New York City public school students are fully vaccinated, according to data the education department released Friday.

In total, 59 percent of the city’s public school students have received at least one vaccine dose and nearly 52 percent are considered fully vaccinated.

The information is required under City Council law, and includes a breakdown of school-level vaccination rates and the number of students who have consented to in-school COVID testing. Updates will be shared every two weeks. The figures don’t include charter schools.

The data show that there are wide disparities by school and neighborhood. Schools in Brooklyn’s District 23, which includes Ocean Hill, Brownsville and parts of East New York, had the lowest rates of vaccination, with just 38 percent of students receiving at least one dose. Districts 16, which includes a significant chunk of Bedford-Stuyvesant, and 18, which includes Flatbush and Canarsie, both had vaccination rates of 43 percent. On Staten Island, the rate is 47 percent.

“In the coming months, we are working with our partner health care agencies on an outreach campaign to encourage vaccination in the communities with the lowest rates,” education department spokesperson Nathaniel Styer said in a statement.

Manhattan’s District 2 has the highest vaccination rate, with 80 percent of students receiving at least one dose. That district spans much of Lower Manhattan, some of Chinatown, and the Upper East Side. Not far behind: District 3 in Manhattan, which includes the Upper West Side and part of Harlem, at 77 percent. Next is District 26 in Bayside, Queens, where 74 percent of students have at least one dose.

At nearly 250 of the city’s schools, fewer than a third of students have received at least one dose. Out of the city’s nearly 1,600 district schools, the share of students who have been vaccinated with at least one dose ranges from just 12 percent to 94 percent.

The city had previously released information about vaccination rates among children, but had not provided data specific to public students or where they go to school.

Nationally, about 26 percent of children ages 5-11 are fully vaccinated and 57 percent of those 12-17 are, according to a New York Times database. Children ages 5-11 became eligible for the vaccine in November; children under 5 are still ineligible.

Public health experts say that information is important to weigh as the state considers whether to lift a mandate to wear masks in schools. Gov. Kathy Hochul has said she will wait until after the mid-winter recess to make a decision. She has said she will weigh a combination of factors, including the positivity rate, vaccination rates, and hospital capacity. On Friday, New York City announced that students will no longer have to wear masks while outside on school grounds, including while playing school-sponsored sports.

Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.

email the author: news@queenspost.com
No comments yet

Leave a Comment
Reply to this Comment

All comments are subject to moderation before being posted.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Recent News

Amazon faces largest U.S. strike as Maspeth teamsters join nationwide picket lines Thursday

Hundreds of warehouse workers and drivers walked off the job and joined the picket line outside the massive DBK4 Amazon fulfillment center in Maspeth on Thursday morning as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) launched the largest strike ever against the $2 trillion corporation in New York City, Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco, and Illinois.

Amazon workers at other facilities across the country say they are prepared to join them to protest unfair labor practices after the IBT set a Dec. 15 deadline for Amazon to begin negotiations on a new agreement. The union was ignored.

East Elmhurst man busted for a fatal collision in Flushing Meadows Corona Park on the 4th of July: NYPD

A Queens grand jury indicted an East Elmhurst man in connection to a July 4th fatal collision at Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

Yersson Diaz, 27, of Ericsson Street just south of LaGuardia Airport, appeared at Queens Criminal Court for a summons on Tuesday and was taken into custody, according to an NYPD spokeswoman. He was booked Tuesday afternoon at the 110th Precinct in Elmhurst, where he was charged with leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death.