Operation Shoe Drop hits Brosnan building in demonstration against potential vaccine mandates for children

Over 180 pairs of shoes, left in the walkway and on the steps leading up to the William J. Brosnan building in Northport this past Thursday evening, were displayed in a silent demonstration against potential state mandates that would require a Covid-19 vaccine for students.

The shoes represent each child that will be pulled from the school district if a mandate goes through, said local parent Nicole Richichi who, along with her husband Paul, helped organize the protest at Brosnan.

After hearing of the island-wide shoe drop event, Nicole contacted people in the Northport-East Northport community she thought would want to participate in the demonstration, and word spread from there. “I feel like it was a really good turnout,” she said from her East Northport home. In a day and a half, approximately 150 pairs of shoes, all from district residents, Nicole said, were dropped off at her house. On Thursday evening, just before the regularly scheduled board of education meeting, Nicole’s husband Paul put the shoes on the walkway leading up to the Brosnan building entrance. About 30 more people dropped shoes off throughout the evening. At 10pm, Paul collected the shoes and the following day, brought them to a mutli-district display at the Dennison building in Hauppauge. The shoes were then donated to the Long Island Coalition for the Homeless.

“As a parent who does not believe in the proposed vaccine mandate, I was honored to lead this with my husband's help,” Nicole said. “I have never been prouder of this community.” The intention was to have members of the board of education see the shoes as they arrived for the meeting, and to have the demonstration be as peaceful as possible, she added.

Children ages 5 to 11 started receiving the Pfizer-BIONTech’s pediatric Covid-19 vaccine in early November, after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the shots. On October 24, Governor Kathy Hochul said Covid case numbers in the state were low enough to “hold judgement” on whether she was considering implementing a vaccine mandate, but said she would “keep all options on the table” should numbers begin to rise.

The day after the demonstration, Nicole told the Journal her personal message is simple: the decision to have children vaccinated against Covid-19 should be a parent’s, and vaccinations should not be required for children to attend school.

Similar demonstrations took place across New York State on Thursday, with local shoe drops photographed and shared on an Operation Shoe Drop Facebook page. Drops of various sizes occurred islandwide – participants from neighboring districts including Commack, Huntington, Elwood, Cold Spring Harbor and Harborfields also documented and shared images of their events on the social media page.

In Northport, each pair of shoes, as requested by Nicole, was accompanied by a personal note, or sign. Some simply listed a family’s name on it, others left messages of “We will not comply” or “Parental choice, no mandates.”

“I have a right to both my body and an education,” read one sign. “My kid, my choice,” read another larger sign, placed directly under the building’s flagpole. At least one note included verses from the Bible, and another, written by a child and addressed to Superintendent Robert Banzer and the board of ed, said “There is no one that should make me wear a mask. Have you ever heard of the saying ‘My Body, My Choice’? Can you please ask the state to change this law now and please let this world go back to normal.”

Nicole worries about the consequences a vaccine mandate would have on the district itself, as well as on its students. She questioned both the fiscal impact that families pulling so many children out of school would have on the district, and the socio-emotional impact it would have on the kids.

According to the health.ny.gov website, the current “New York State Immunization Requirements for School Entrance and Attendance" include vaccinations against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis, poliovirus, measles-mumps-rubella, varicella, Hepatitis B, the Tdap (tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis) booster and meningococcal conjugate. While New York State has not mandated Covid-19 vaccinations for students in grades K-12, some parents worry the state will “simply add” the vaccination to the existing schedule of requirements. Currently neither teachers nor students of any age in the Northport-East Northport school district are required to have the vaccination, though unvaccinated teachers must undergo weekly Covid testing.

“It’s a hypothetical but we know it’s coming,” said Nicole, who understands the board of education is limited in action if a state mandate were to happen. “The governor has been very clear that there will be mandates for children 5 through 11. We really feel like this is going to happen. We’re really concerned about it. We’re not going to sit back and not at least try to do something.”