In response to a recent polio outbreak, New York health authorities have informed private schools across the state that they will begin fining schools who have students that are not up to date on their immunizations.
According to a letter sent to the administrators of yeshivos and other private schools, educational institutions will be subject to $2,000-a-day fines per student that is not fully vaccinated.
The letter reads as follows:
In July 2022, the New York State Health Department reported paralytic polio in a young adult who was unvaccinated. The United States is now the only country in our hemisphere to report a case of polio acquired here. This unfortunate event has refocused our attention on the importance of vaccination and the role of school vaccination requirements in ensuring individual and community protection.
It is essential for the health and safety of students and staff, and the public at large, that all schools comply with Public Health Law Section 2164 and associated regulations at 10 NYCRR Subpart 66-1 regarding school immunization and/or immunity coverage.
This letter is intended to outline the responsibility of schools to ensure that each student has documentation of all required doses of vaccines on the recommended schedule or a valid medical exemption to immunization. It also outlines the penalties schools may face. Compliance with school mandates for vaccination applies to all public, private, and religious schools.
A medical exemption is allowed when a student has a medical condition that prevents them from receiving a vaccine. Such conditions are relatively few, and they are protected by the successful vaccination of others. Any student for whom the school does not receive documentation within 14 days of the first day of school or daycare must be excluded. This 14-day period may be extended to 30 days for a student arriving in New York from out of state. Put simply, the child is not allowed to attend until documents are provided.
It is the school’s responsibility to ensure compliance with the mandated vaccination requirements. Additionally, the Health Department may conduct an audit to check on school compliance. Following an audit, the Department will make available to the school the list of children who have failed to provide proof of vaccination compliance. The school then must pursue documentation of vaccination or valid medical exemption and, failing adequate documentation, pursue exclusion. The county health official or State Health Commissioner may also order exclusion of a student if the school fails to act.
If a school does not meet its obligation to enforce vaccination mandates, it may be subject to fines. Please be advised that failure to comply with PHL § 2164 and 10 NYCRRR Part 66-1 will subject a school to sanctions by the Commissioner of Health, including fines of up to $2,000 per violation. Each day that a student who has not provided proof of immunity or a valid medical exemption is permitted to attend school constitutes a separate violation for which a fine can be assessed.
Fines will also be assessed for failure to submit a mandatory annual School Immunization Survey. Further, in addition to being subject to fines by the Health Commissioner, a school may also be referred to the New York State Education Department to determine whether sanctions should be imposed pursuant to Education Law Section 911.
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27 Responses
That’s an outrageous fine. Medical choices are personal. The state has no business mixing in and generating billions in profits for vaccine makers – who are exempt from product liability. You cannot force people to take a medical injection on a liability free product.
The headline is misleading. The New York State health authorities are acting against all private schools, not just yeshivos.
To PleaseStayCalm
That’s quite a rant for someone with your username
All in favor of vaccinations. And everything needs to be done properly with full compliance. However, it is simple to see that the state looks at this as a cash cow, and levies hefty fines that can run the risk of crushing a private school financially. It is also possible, considering the climate of DOE, that the enforcement of this will be discriminatory, and target yeshivos while ignoring non-Jewish private schools. No, I’m not paranoid. Just smell the air. I think that Agudah should prepare lawyers to investigate and document this discrimination, and prepare huge lawsuits against the state.
Vote Democrat they said. Huju so it is against Yeshivas and it’s tyrannical. This is about control not safety. Democrats are tyrants.
My body my choice.
‘Letitia James’
Once again the state legislature has been hijacked by big pharma
Many of the bills that took away vaccine freedom were proposed by lawmakers with connections to big pharma (hoylman for example is married to a guy in the Vax industry) or pharma basically sponsored their campaigns and got them elected and now own them. Thus the rash of anti vaccine choice laws passed over the years to attend school even though many of these illnesses are harmless, treatable, or don’t even create herd immunity. For example the flu shot, due to viral mutations and low effectiveness has zero to no effect on herd immunity (similar to covid shots)
Such vaccines have no place being mandated as they have only a possible personal benefit not public. (And personal benefit is questionable as well especially for children)
It’s not about health and never was
It’s about generating endless profit for the industry
Which polio out break? The one case that turned out to polio plus two other viruses…?
U mean polio in the sewer that proves again no cases…
Not that I’m against vaccination but as a free country you can’t force someone to inject themselves or their kids. You can try to convince them. That’s the deal if you consider yourself a free country.
Does this $2000 fine include failure to obtain Corona vaccination?
1. Is there a state statute authorizing the agency to enforce vaccination policies on schools? (ultra vires)
2. Is the policy being enforced uniformly regardless of whether the school is religious, secular, public or private? (equal protection, under federal and state constitutions)
3. Are the vaccines required ones that can reasonably be required (arbitrary and capricious)
From a Jewish perspective, a community’s Beis Din/Rabbanim could probably require a vaccine for students, and halacha doesn’t prohibit vaccines.
most on this blog are too young to remember the devastation of polio ask your grandparents , the overwhelming majority are vax for polio
the mosdos dont mind complying and this makes it easier that the gov is the ” shlechte”
of the small percent that dont vax is not because they really studied the science the frum comm has many very ehrliche pediatricians ask them as you do for so many other issues
well. yes any person not taking taking vaccine should pay more than that fine. they should be imprisoned too. they should be dealt with as the worst of criminals, murderer. they are no different, killing more people than a murderer.
i wish this law gets enforced. so do all normal and trying to be safe and healthy parents want
please nyc. enforce it, with imprisonment like murderers
by the way kathy hochul made flu vaccine mandatory, just asking are the illegals that NYC is paying $ 1 BILLION to house in high end Manhattan hotels vaccinated?
That pic is not a child, too much body hair
YWN again goes for the dog whistle click bait headline . This ruling covers private schools, not just yeshivas.
The state is not forcing you to vaccinate your children. Rather, it has an interest in protecting children from illnesses.
Therefore, if you want your child to attend the school with other children, you have to vaccinate them against dangerous illnesses. You are welcome to homeschool your child, where you will not have to vaccinate them.
Just like we require public places to have safety doors, sprinklers and all other things like that. We require schools to not become a place where dangerous diseases can be transmitted when they can be the prevented with vaccines.
Everybody is welcome to keep their child at home and teach them like the good old days.
I didnt vax for covid because there was no proof it works. And guess what, IT DIDNT. Polio hiwever did work. So why not vax for it.
Did you know that according to the WHO, someone who gets symptoms of polio after they’ve had a polio vaccine needs to be diagnosed as suffering aseptic meningitis, and not polio. That’s an easy way of making sure the vaccine has 100% efficacy.
And did you know that NO vaccine has ever undergone a double-blind placebo randomised placebo controlled safety trial. Can you guess why not?
To aishes chayil. You’re totally right if what you’re talking is true. The question is if unvaccinated kids really pose a risk to the vaccinated. Did you bichlal attempt to research some of the vaccines before you opened your mouth? How about you start doing your research and look up every ingredient in vaccines and see for yourself if they’re safe or not. See the study of DR Paul Thomas. He did a study on his own patients vaccinated vs unvaccinated and it turned out that unvaccinated kids are much healthier and less likely to get most of today’s abc’s.
Think of it that way. You feel that 1 or 2 is safe and it stops certain things but i know differently. Can you force me to take something because you think differently? Or because you were programmed by the corrupt medical system? Btw no need to start talking nonsense here because I’m not an anti vaxer i was actually extremely pro vax until i decided to stop bashing people before looking into both sides and guess what their side won.
Good!
If you don’t vaccinate your children against polio, they will end up crippled and unable to find shidduchim!
The repeal of the vaccination exemption option in NYS must be undone.
Akuperma, yes, there is a statute, yes, as far as anyone knows it is being enforced equally, and yes, the required vaccines are all reasonable. As far as I know the new Wuhan “vaccine” is not on the list. If you have information otherwise, please provide it.
To the idiot who wrote about the fines being a “cash cow”, nobody is expected ever to pay the fines, because all schools are expected to comply with the law and remove unvaccinated children from their classes. That is what the Satmar letter says it will do; so it will not have to pay even one dollar in fines. I’m sure the same will be true of every school. No violations, and thus no fines, and no cash for the government. That’s the very opposite of a “cash cow”.
Every pandemic step that Public Health officials have done has only hurt children. Not only socialy & academically, but also now medically (hence the the whole RSP Immunity Dept catchup). No one can ever trust anyone of them again in good faith, especially the meshugeners from NYS.
Anyone read: Turdles All The Way Down? (Translated from Ivrit)
Must read “Turtles all the way down” which explains how every single vaccine has never been properly safety tested. According to the manufacturers own data, each and every vaccine “placebo” in studies is actually – get this- a different vaccine.
This is fact, not rumors. Not quackery.
But obviously since the previous vaccine is so safe it’s as harmless as saline, it’s obviously perfectly fine to use as a placebo, right? The very fact that there is NO placebo controlled study for a single vaccine is a blaring red alarm for the bedrock of vaccine safety.
Furthermore, of the 14 illnesses which vaccines are given, only 5 can confer real herd immunity, so only those can even be used as an argument that vaccines should be forced to protect others. Basically
For all those people walking around with a chip on their shoulder especially our lovely eishes Chayil who thinks unvaxxed are murderers… she obviously needs to stop reading tehillim and educate herself because she is obviously clueless.