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New York City’s most exclusive and expensive fee-paying schools are ordering students over the age of five to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
The principals of elite schools including Spence, Chapin located on Manhattan’s posh Upper East Side and Horace Mann, located in the Bronx, have sent letters and emails home to parents requesting pupils get the shot over the winter break.
The schools, many of which are described as being the ‘Ivy League of Preparatory Schools, and which charge upwards of $55,000-a-year, are requesting children come back from their Christmas holidays fully vaccinated.
Some of the schools already informed parents via letter of the impending requirements and deadlines for students to receive the jab. Pfizer’s two-shot COVID vaccine is now available in the US for all children aged five and up.
‘The expectation is now for all Spence students ages 5-11 to have received their first dose of COVID vaccine before January 7, 2022, and to be fully vaccinated by February 11, 2022,’ Spence’s Principal Bodie Brizentine wrote to parents last month.
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Spence was one of multiple elite academies rocked by scandals over their teaching of critical race theory last year, with the vaccine mandate likely to fray the nerves of some parents angered at what their youngsters were being taught about race.
Religious and medical exemptions will be considered before this Monday.
‘No consideration of exemptions will be accepted after this date,’ Brizentine warned.
Thomas Kelly, Head of School at Horace Mann sent a similar letter.
‘No one with children ages five through eleven should be surprised by the school’s decision to mandate the new Pfizer vaccine,’ Kelly wrote in a note sent over email.