September 3, 2019
For
Immediate Release:
Statement by Rabbi David Niederman,
President of the UJO of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn regarding the End of
the Measles Outbreak in the City and Williamsburg
This is wonderful news for back to school time; hopefully, childcare centers and schools will be allowed to focus
on educating their children while ensuring they remain up-to-date with immunizations.
“We thank
all Williamsburg parents, schools, day care centers and healthcare
professionals for their hard work that stemmed this outbreak. The community
took this issue seriously, and thanks Hashem that we succeeded to bring an end
to the spread of the infection. We also commend the NYC Department of Health,
the de Blasio administration and various other partners that we worked with
during the past months to bring this outbreak to an end,” said Rabbi David
Niederman, President of the UJO of Williamsburg and North Brooklyn.
“Now, it is time for some reflection and taking the lessons going forward. First and foremost, we reiterate our call to parents to ensure that their children are up-to-date with all their immunizations. Today it was measles – one of the most contagious infections - tomorrow it may be an even more serious infection. We are a heavily concentrated neighborhood, and a large number of small children, and we all want to protect the children and their families. We know that the overwhelming majority of parents don’t need that reminder, but with the hectic schedules, it’s important to reiterate the importance of timely immunizations,” Rabbi Niederman continued.
“Finally, this declaration is coming right during the Back-to-School season. We hope that will restore order to Williamsburg yeshivas and childcare centers. During the past half year, schools and child care centers were subjected to repeated, erroneous and redundant DOHMH inspections by numerous inspectors asking for the same paper records, literally on a daily basis. Yeshivas and childcare centers were closed unjustly. Many times, it was because of new rules, that they were not notified of, or for differing interpretation by individual inspectors. Childcare centers, school administrators and their staff were bogged down to respond to record requests. There are many examples and complaints of unwarranted school closures. We hope that the end of the outbreak, will also bring an end to unreasonable actions. There is an efficient way to do inspections, without paralyzing a childcare and school system educating tens of thousands of children, and without forcing hardworking parents to stay home to care for their children, due to the closures of their kindergartens.
"We met the Commissioner and shared a list of issues, and we hope that they will be rectified and addressed, so that childcare centers can return to provide quality early childhood services and schools can go back to teaching, while also ensuring that their children are fully immunized,” Rabbi Niederman concluded.
