Fewer than 200,000 unvaccinated students have consented to participate in the New York City public school system’s COVID-19 testing program, education officials revealed in a City Council hearing Wednesday.
The 192,705 students in K-12th grades who have consented to be part of their schools’ weekly random testing this year are a fraction of the total eligible population. Epidemiologists say that a more accurate picture of COVID transmission is captured if all eligible students are tested.
The school system has approximately 500,000 elementary-age students, all of whom would be unvaccinated since they’re under the age of 12, said Council Member Mark Treyger, chair of the Council’s education committee, during the hearing. Pre-K and 3K students are not tested at all, nor are vaccinated students. This year's enrollment numbers won't be released until the end of October, but there were 960,000 students enrolled last year.
Plus, there are the unknown numbers of students who are eligible for the vaccine but haven’t received it yet -- citywide, 74% of kids ages 12 to 17 are vaccinated though that data doesn’t break out public school students, said Department of Education Deputy Chancellor Donald Conyers at the hearing.
“These are not very reassuring numbers,” Treyger said of the percentage of kids who have consented to be tested.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has doggedly defended reopening schools for in-person learning this fall with no remote option, repeating his belief that New York City schools were the “gold standard” of safety in terms of testing, school protocols and vaccinations. After numerous legal challenges, the city implemented its vaccination mandate Monday for all DOE employees with limited religious and medical exemptions.
But the city does not have a vaccination mandate for public school students, and instead implemented weekly random testing of 10% of every school’s unvaccinated students who have filled out the consent form.
That’s a step back from last year’s testing protocol, which required every school to test 20% of its in-person student and staff population. By December 2020, 90% of students attending in-person learning (at that point, less than 20% of the system’s 960,000-student enrollment) had consented to the weekly testing.
In August, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidance that recommends that unvaccinated students and staff get tested weekly, noting that local school districts can decide the precise details about how to screen students.
“Our level of testing is working and with 100% of in-person staff vaccinated, our schools are among some of the safest places to be in the city,” said DOE spokesperson Nathaniel Styer in a statement. “We are diligently collecting consent forms, collecting over 20,000 in the past week, and encourage every parent of an unvaccinated student to submit consent forms and help continue to keep our schools safe and open.”
Treyger also questioned whether the DOE was actually reaching its 10% testing threshold at all schools, saying he’s heard of schools where fewer than 10% of students have consented for testing.
“We are every day encouraging parents and students to step up, and parents to sign that consent. It is not something that we are overlooking. We are pushing every day,” Conyers said, and added, “we are continuing our consent campaign along with our vaccination campaign, so that we can also meet one of the pillars in our multi-layered approach.”
Treyger said the DOE needs to be more forthcoming with basic information such as enrollment, attendance, and vaccination rates among students.
“The fact that you don't have, today, basic information available to the committee and to the public...this is just not acceptable,” he said.
