- Attorney Jimmy Wagner obtained New York City Department of Education records showing 5,511 teachers were fired under the COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
- That total dwarfs the 914 Department of Education firings the city reported in February 2022.
- Teachers for Choice founder Michael Kane estimates at least 10,000 educators were lost once resignations are counted.
- Fired educators, including 32-year veteran Helene Moffatt, are still fighting their dismissals in court.
- A 2025 city reinstatement offer for about 2,900 fired workers excluded back pay.
New York City officials’ early count of mandate firings missed the mark by thousands. Attorney Jimmy Wagner, using Freedom of Information Law requests, uncovered Department of Education records showing 5,399 public school teachers were terminated in 2022 for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine, with another 112 fired the following year. That 5,511 total dwarfs the February 2022 city report that claimed only 914 DOE workers had been let go. The discrepancy raises uncomfortable questions about what else city hall hasn’t told taxpayers about the mandate that stripped veteran educators of their careers.
“We know it is a lie, because it was 5,500 teachers,” Wagner told The Defender.
The real number of lost educators could be double what records show
The newly obtained figures only cover teachers, leaving out an unknown number of non-teaching school employees who also lost their jobs. Advocates say the full picture is far worse. Michael Kane, founder of Teachers for Choice, noted that aides, therapists and other support staff aren’t included in the count. When factoring in more than 16,718 teachers who resigned in 2022, a figure that the records say includes vaccine-related terminations, Kane estimates the city lost at least 10,000 educators due to the mandate.
Kane, who called even that figure likely a huge underestimate, said the city’s silence five years later is telling. “If this was really not a big deal, and if the numbers were low, New York City would have reported them publicly a long time ago,” he told The Defender.
Wagner drew a direct line between the teacher exodus and struggling students, noting that roughly half of New York City schoolchildren now read below grade level. State test results released in August show citywide reading proficiency in grades 3 through 8 fell six points this year to 50.3%.
One fired educator’s fight shows how a ‘problem code’ allegedly blocked rehire
Helene Moffatt isn’t just another statistic. She spent 32 years working for the DOE, starting as a teacher in 1990 and later moving into administration. When officials denied her religious exemption request based on Catholic beliefs, she was fired on April 7, 2022. But the punishment didn’t end there. Moffatt alleges the department flagged her file with a “problem code,” effectively barring her from landing another teaching job in the city’s schools even after the mandate ended.
A federal judge dismissed her lawsuit in September, but Moffatt is appealing to the 2nd Circuit. Her attorney, Ronald Berutti, says the Supreme Court’s 1905 smallpox ruling in Jacobson v. Massachusetts shouldn’t automatically decide her case, since the city’s mandate came from executive action rather than a vote by lawmakers. Berutti believes the current Supreme Court’s record on religious freedom and separation of powers could draw the justices’ interest.
Court battles continue as city’s reinstatement offer excludes back pay
When the city scrapped the mandate in February 2023, fired workers stayed fired. In November 2025, the city offered reinstatement to roughly 2,900 municipal workers, not just teachers, but the offer excluded back pay and credit for lost time. Former educators and their lawyers say that leaves the financial damage untouched.
Other fired teachers have faced similar courtroom defeats. Maureen Hurley, a fired school librarian, and Jadenae Trabacchi, a former tenured teacher, both had their lawsuits dismissed by federal judges. Lorraine Masciarelli, terminated in September 2022 after officials denied her religious exemption requests, sued that December, arguing the DOE never offered her reasonable accommodations.
Attorney Austin Graff, representing Masciarelli, told The Defender that every terminated educator “should get their jobs back, with back pay, benefits and pension credit.”
“I am sick to my stomach,” Wagner said of what the DOE did to rank-and-file New Yorkers. He notes that Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mayor Zohran Mamdani and the teachers union have barely said a word. That silence is its own answer. A city that once demanded proof of vaccination from every teacher still can’t show its own work on how many of them it pushed out. And the people who paid the price were never the officials who wrote the mandate.
Sources for this article include:
TeachersForChoice.Substack.com
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