Transforming toxic: a new vision for urban waterways takes shape in Brooklyn – in photos The Guardian
Day: September 2, 2026
Our kids only get one opportunity at a good education, but without good health that opportunity is wasted. As this summer comes to an end, New York City families are ticking through a familiar checklist: school supplies, haircuts, fall clothes, maybe a new backpack. But the most important item is the one that’s easiest to put off until the last minute: your child’s vaccinations, which are critical for a healthy and successful school year.
Serious diseases like measles, mumps, whooping cough, and chickenpox are no longer in the past and are on the rise. Measles outbreaks have returned across the country with deadly consequences, a bracing reminder that these dangers are just one under-vaccinated classroom away.
Why require school vaccinations? The answer has been shown throughout history: When enough people in a community are immunized, the disease has nowhere to go. It can’t jump from child to child fast enough to sustain an outbreak. So when we work together, we protect those who are vaccinated as well as babies too young to be fully immunized, kids with medical conditions that prevent vaccination, and anyone whose immune system doesn’t respond as strongly to a shot. Vaccines protect your child as well as the entire classroom.
New York City closely monitors both national outbreaks and local cases, so we know that our efforts work. Since more than 97% of our kindergartners were fully vaccinated against measles in 2025, and older students remain immunized, we rarely see the disease spread in classrooms. All six confirmed NYC cases in 2026 were due to unvaccinated international travel.
The requirements for New York City schools — covering measles, mumps, and rubella, polio, chickenpox, pertussis, diphtheria, tetanus, and hepatitis B for all students, with additional vaccines like Hib, pneumococcal, and flu shots for children under five, and boosters like Tdap and MenACWY for middle schoolers — aren’t bureaucratic hoops to jump through. They are a collective effort, renewed every school year, to make sure our kids are safe and healthy.
For many families, the barrier isn’t willingness, it’s affordability. That’s why New York City supports health requirements by delivering access to high quality, no-cost physical exams and immunizations, and help finding a doctor through 311. These services are available to each and every New Yorker, no matter your immigration or insurance status, or how much money you make.
If you’re confused about what shots your kids need, you’re not alone. This year the federal government has repeatedly made false and long-discredited claims about the risks of vaccines. But the science has not changed: It’s still grounded in decades of research and systematic tracking of real-world experiences involving specific diseases in the United States.
The Trump Administration’s orders have zero impact on New York parents but they make it harder and more expensive for parents in other states to vaccinate their kids. It’s part of a broader strategy to cause confusion and erode vaccine confidence.
The flu vaccine must be given to children under five enrolled in child care and pre-K by the end of December — but health providers urge getting it in early fall, when it can be most protective before flu season builds, rather than waiting until the deadline. And for those entering sixth and seventh grades, the Tdap and meningococcal boosters are required, so make a plan now to keep the whole family up to date.
NYC is working to make this process as easy as possible. A single visit to a pediatrician or a School-Based Health Center gets your child a physical exam, a vaccine review, and the medical forms schools require, all at once. Make that one appointment now and save your family a more stressful one later, when the school calls home because a child’s records are incomplete.
Vaccines save lives. Don’t wait for the first day of school to find out your child’s immunization status. Call your family doctor, and if you do not have one, here are three ways to schedule your child’s vaccinations:
Then you can cross one major item off your list before the hectic week that school starts.
Jennifer Gutiérrez represents District 34 in the New York City Council. Dr. Alister F. Martin is New York City’s Health Commissioner. Lynn Schulman represents District 29 in the New York City Council and serves as chair of the Council’s Committee on Health.