( AP Photo/Mark Lennihan )
Jessica Gould, WNYC and Gothamist reporter, and Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky, data reporter for WNYC and Gothamist, talk about the hectic start to 2022 in NYC public schools, from changing testing protocols and staff shortages to a student walkout demanding a remote learning option.
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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It looks like Mayor Eric Adams is about to change course from one of Mayor Bill de Blasio's most ardently held COVID policies that there would be no remote option for families who feel safer with the kids learning from home. Adams himself seemed to fervently believe in that too. You've heard him as he keeps saying since he was inaugurated that the safest place for kids is in school, right? About a quarter of public-school students have been staying home since new year's. That's hundreds of thousands of kids not attending on any given day.
There was also a walkout by some high school students this week to call for a remote option or a temporary closure of schools, except for a hybrid option for students with food insecurity. Mayor Adams is now in negotiations with the Teachers' Union on how to set something up for possibly the remainder of this school year. This is a reversal, but maybe it's not a complete surprise. Back in December, Adams' incoming Schools Chancellor, David Banks, was on this show and gave us a hint that he is more open to remote learning as a concept than Mayor de Blasio had been.
David Banks: My gut tells me that while most kids should be back in school, there is a small percentage of kids who the remote learning worked for them. Why not create that as an option? Why does it have to be one size that fits all for everybody? I fundamentally don't believe that. I believe in choice. I believe in us being nimble, and flexible, and to the degree that we can create a system that can in fact meet the needs of all the kids. That's what I want to do.
Brian Lehrer: That was before Adams and Banks were sworn in. Here's Mayor Adams yesterday, changing his tune to be closer to that.
Mayor Adams: We do have to be honest that there's a substantial number of children, for whatever reason, parents are not bringing them to school. I have to make sure children are educated. We've lost two years of education. Two years. The fallout is unbelievable. Math and English. English is not as bad as math, but the numbers with math, they are frightening.
My goal is to continue to push forward to get our children in school. I must entertain with my president of the UFT to come together as a partner and say, how do we, number one, identify those children that are not in school because we want to go see them, bring them into school. I'm willing to sit down and entertain with the UFT if there is a way to do a temporary remote option.
Brian Lehrer: Temporary remote option, Mayor Adams yesterday. Maybe one reason they're now setting up for a hybrid system is stories like this from a Brooklyn Tech student named Stephanie describing one of her classes where the teacher has been out.
Stephanie: In the class where the teacher has been consistently absent, there have been two times where we came to the class and there was no substitute. We just let ourselves into the class and we sat there waiting for a substitute. One of those times, a substitute eventually did show up halfway through the period to take attendance, but the other time, there was a teacher that passed by and just happened to see us and sat with us until someone else would show up, yes.
Brian Lehrer: Stephanie from Brooklyn Tech. In this complex mess of a moment in education when testing and masking policies are changing, testing shortages and inconsistencies about when some schools have good air filters and some do not. When most elementary school students remain unvaccinated. When many teachers are out due to COVID and student absenteeism is high. When there are various protest groups, let's face it, for and against a temporary closure. Here comes the new complexity, it seems, of how to set up a 2022 hybrid system.
Parents, students, teachers, other stakeholders listening right now, what do you want to happen? Give us a call and let your voice be heard at 212-433-WNYC, 433-9692. Students, if you're out there, we definitely want to hear from you, not just your parents. Anyone listening who took part in that walkout, or any students who opposed it and decided not to participate, 212-433-9692, or just describe conditions in your school. Parents, teachers, principals, anyone else, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.
With us now, our WNYC education reporter, Jessica Gould, and WNYC health and science data reporter, Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky. Hi, Jessica and Jaclyn, never a dull moment in education policy and data crunching these days, welcome back to the show. [laughs]
Jessica Gould: Hi. Yes, we've been talking about how the news is drinking from a fire hose, [laughs] how it's been for quite a while now.
Brian Lehrer: Really, 2015 maybe. Anyway, Jessica, that Brooklyn Tech student clip was from your reporting. Can you tell us about the context for that?
Jessica Gould: Sure. Stephanie is one of multiple students who reached out to us because they wanted to talk about the situation on the ground. I want to be clear that I'm hearing about a range of experiences in schools from students and staff. There're 1,600 schools, and they each have their own shapes and sizes in their own communities. I will say that everyone is stressed at this point.
Last week, we were hearing about a lot of chaos. Half of the staff or more in some schools, half of the students were out. Classes with students in the single digits, combined classes, guidance counselors and administrators or even central office bureaucrats being sent to watch over classes. People disappearing in the middle of the day because they tested positive. At some of these big high schools like Brooklyn Tech and like Bronx Science, kids were being sent to auditoriums for mass study halls multiple times a day just because their teachers weren't there.
Brian Lehrer: That's a lot. Jaclyn, I know you've been looking at data on absenteeism. What can you tell us about who's attending and who's not overall and broken down by any demographics?
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: Yes, we have been looking at that data. When we just picked one day, we picked this past Tuesday to look at the attendance at the school level. Then we combined that school-level attendance data with a demographic breakdown of each school. It's from last year, so it might not be quite up to date, but it's the best data we have. What we found is that there was a difference in average attendance between schools with 10% or fewer white students versus schools with more white students.
Just on that one Tuesday, for example, average attendance at schools with 10% or fewer white students with 68%, and at whiter schools, it was 76%. That trend also held when we checked a week prior, it does have a lot of caveats, it's just one day, the split is kind of arbitrary, and it's a very simple analysis that didn't account for like the reasons why, but it is very striking nevertheless.
Brian Lehrer: Now last school year when families had choice, if I remember correctly, around two-thirds of kids stayed home. The remote option had disproportionately Black and Latino and lower-income families choosing it, choosing to stay remote. Is that right? Can you compare that to who appears to be keeping their kids out of school now?
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: Sure. it was a little before my time, but just based on reporting by my colleagues at WNYC and Gothamist, we do know that Black and brown parents were more likely than white parents to keep their children at home for remote learning. As for this year, like I said, we can't know from our very simple analysis what's behind this attendance gap. It could be caused by countless different factors that may or may not have to do with COVID.
At the same time, we know that low-income primarily Black and brown neighborhoods are being hit especially hard by this wave as has been the case for much of the pandemic. It is an important context for the Mayor's assertion that he's keeping schools open primarily for low-income families of color that rely on it.
Jessica Gould: Brian, can I just add something there?
Brian Lehrer: Yes, Jessica, yes.
Jessica Gould: I wanted to mention that the chaos that we were hearing about last week, and I think you see this also in the absenteeism, as I said, it's a range, right? Some of the schools still are struggling, particularly middle and high schools, because of all the electives, but some schools are handling things pretty okay. Kids are still having a fairly normal experience, normal in COVID times with masks and windows open in the winter. Still, some people being out and some substitutes, maybe some more movies, but it is not as chaotic as it was last week, and it's also not chaos across the board.
Brian Lehrer: Why now in that case for Mayor Adams to decide on a remote option?
Jessica Gould: There are over 200,000 kids who are not in school right now, either because they're sick and in quarantine, or because their parents are keeping them home. There is a substantial group of families who are keeping kids home to wait out the Omicron surge. There have been a small group of families who've been staying out this whole year for that reason, but now there are more.
I think that he can't look at those numbers and feel like everybody is being educated, and the guidelines have been evolving over the past two weeks about how to serve kids who are at home. Most recently, the plan has been that for kids who are COVID positive and can prove it through a test that they get asynchronous learning with their teachers and some office hours. There has not been an option for kids who are absent because their families are being cautious. Some teachers are proactively giving them assignments and trying to include them, but that's a disparity that's been evolving.
Brian Lehrer: You said the kids who test positive for COVID or home on COVID protocols get asynchronous learning. What is asynchronous learning?
Jessica Gould: They get assignments that they can fill out and then they can meet with their teachers. I think the idea for this remote option, if it should happen, and I have quite a bit of skepticism about that, but it would be an opportunity for kids whose families don't feel comfortable sending them in this climate to get education.
Brian Lehrer: We have a lot of calls coming in from teachers and others, let's take one now. Anne in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anne, thank you for calling in.
Anne: Hi, thank you for doing the show. I really want to make a point about that we were given time to set up our Google Classrooms.
Brian Lehrer: You're a teacher, I take it?
Anne: I am. I am a speech teacher, actually. They gave us time in the beginning of the year to set up to go remote at any time. They actually paid us procession, and everybody was ready to go by November 1st in case there was an emergency, either a weather emergency or a health emergency, so that we were ready to go.
Why they're saying that they're not sure how they can do it right now makes no sense to me because every teacher in the city is set. The Google Classrooms are ready, the permission slips were put in. That's one thing I just wanted to bring up because I haven't really heard that discussed anywhere.
Brian Lehrer: Good. What do you want to happen? What do you think would be the best thing based on your experience?
Anne: Right now, I'm home because I was exposed and I tested positive on Sunday. I went in all last week, and out of 22 children on my caseload, because I'm a speech teacher, I only had 2 children by Friday. That means 20 of the children were out for whatever the reason. I know that at least 15 of them had COVID. The others, maybe just being cautious.
Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much. Thanks for all that insight information, and be safe. Thank you very much for checking in with us. Let's go to Fannie in Brooklyn, a parent, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fannie, thank you for calling in.
Fannie: Hi. Can you hear me?
Brian Lehrer: I can hear you fine.
Fannie: Hi. How are you? Thank you, Brian. I think I was on the phone with you and Jessica last year during the period when the prior mayor shut down the schools and it went full remote or over that 3% threshold he had negotiated with the union.
Brian Lehrer: Oh, yes, there was a 3% positivity rate in the tests, then the schools were supposed to shut down, and he waited till it was a little higher than that, but then yes, it happened.
Fannie: Yes. Then after that, I was actually criticizing the way the Mayor gave into the union's unreasonable demands and kept giving into the union's demands for two case rolls, et cetera. Arguably last year before vaccines and before all these things that we have available to us now to protect ourselves and before a mild version that's highly an insight to a lot of people, they had a better case for the remote learning.
At this point, I personally had COVID last week and my child also had COVID, and even though per CDC guidelines, he could have gone back to school, he didn't from last Thursday through today because of the 10-day quarantine period, and he's doing some work, of course, through the Google task classrooms.
He goes to Edward R. Murrow School, which is a big high school in Brooklyn. A lot of children are missing, a lot of teachers are missing, a lot of children are there and still enjoying the benefits of in-person school, in which in my opinion, is far superior to anything that remote learning to provide such a horrible experience for him and for many, many kids.
Brian Lehrer: Based on your experience and your past criticism of the Teachers' Union for arguing for shutdown last school year, what do you think of Mayor Adams now offering a remote-- or he's not offering it yet, but he says, they're talking now about offering a remote option. Your child could still go in-person, others who want to stay home could stay home. How does that strike you?
Fannie: Well, it depends on what he means by it because the unions were very much against having cameras in the classroom and doing it that way for some reason. Now, they're talking that perhaps that would be a solution. I feel like because this Omicron wave will probably peak as all your scientists on the radio say soon and in the coming couple of weeks, I personally don't think that there's a need for establishing a remote option where it's just by choice. Everyone can choose it and every teacher can choose to do that because I think that's going to impact the in-person education in schools negatively. I feel like the Mayor was correct to hold the line against this until now.
Brian Lehrer: Fannie, thank you so much for your call, I really appreciate your perspective. Two different perspectives, one from a teacher, one from a parent there in those two calls with our education reporter, Jessica Gould, and our health and science data reporter, Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky. Jessica, to be clear, is the Mayor only talking about a hybrid system that allows families to choose individually whether to go remote, or might there be a temporary systemwide closure that some people have been calling for?
Jessica Gould: I don't think there's going to be a temporary closure. He was saying the word that it would be a temporary option yesterday. He has been very clear even through his saying that they are considering a remote option that he believes kids are better off in school. I think it would be potentially an option for some kids to get remote learning while home.
Brian Lehrer: We also heard from that last caller by implication and inconsistency between the CDC guidelines and the New York City Department of Education rules on how long you have to stay home after you test positive. The CDC is now saying 5 days, if your symptoms have abated, the New York City public schools are still requiring 10 days, if I understand correctly. Are they considering shortening it?
Jessica Gould: They still require 10 days for students. They are saying that staff can come back after 5 days, if their symptoms have improved, all the qualifications that the CDC has. I asked them this week if there was any plan to change the length of time students are staying home. Not yet, so far as I've heard.
Brian Lehrer: Why is it different for students and teachers?
Jessica Gould: That's a really good question. I'll have to follow up with them about that.
Brian Lehrer: [laughs] I guess so. Part of the mess of different testing protocols or isolation protocols, I should say, and quarantine protocols, which are all over the place. Jaclyn, I see you've also been examining the data on testing in schools. Would you remind us what the latest testing protocol is supposed to be? Who's supposed to get tested at school and how often?
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: Yes. It's a doozy. Under the new system, the DOE calculates a target number of weekly tests for each school, and the way they do that is by taking 20% of the number of unvaccinated students who've opted into the testing program at that school. That gives them their target, but then they test that number of students, but the students can be either vaccinated or unvaccinated. Now under the new expanded testing policy, both vaccinated and unvaccinated students can be tested.
Then staff are also allowed to participate in onsite testing. The DOE is calling that a courtesy, and that's a change from mid-November when we saw staff testing plummet. Some teachers said that they were told they were no longer allowed to be tested. They're allowed to be tested now, although many teachers have said that the restrictions and rules around onsite testing make it hard for them to actually go get tested and practice, but we have seen those numbers come back up.
Brian Lehrer: What does those-- go ahead, Jessica. Oh, Jaclyn, go ahead.
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: You asked about frequency. My understanding is that each school gets one testing day per week.
Brian Lehrer: Do you have demographic breakdowns on the effectiveness of testing to paint a clear picture about which families are opting in or out of this voluntary testing program by age or geography or race or anything?
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: I wish, I so wish. Unfortunately, we don't know anything about who's opting in beyond a raw number. We know about 340,000 students have opted into testing, and the city has promised us multiple times to share each school's opting rate with us, but we haven't had much luck actually getting that information. If we had it and if we had the school level of vaccination rates, we could understand better which schools are actually meeting their testing goals. In the meantime, what we can do is look at the number of tests being conducted at each school versus the total enrollment, which is what I did.
Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: Out of the 1,500 plus schools for which we had data, we didn't have data for all the schools, we found 100 that tested 10 or fewer students last week. That's not very many. We found more than 250 that tested less than 5% of their total student body. Then we also found a couple of schools that are doing a really good job. They tested 1/5 or more of their students last week.
Brian Lehrer: It's all over the place, it sounds like, as to what kind of picture each principal might even have about the amount of spread in their schools.
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: Absolutely.
Brian Lehrer: Edson in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hello, Edson.
Edson: Hey, Brian. Thanks for taking my call, long-time listener. My experiences with my daughter, she got vaccinated, it's very good at the Central Park East High School in Harlem. It's a small east school over there. I want to say that the principal over there, Mr. Bennett Lieberman, keep me update with what's going on in the school, and so far, my daughter has not missed any day of class, and she got the kit to test, she tests herself, negative, so she hasn't missed any day over there.
I just want to point that this a very positive over there. I'm really, really happy that's what's going on over there, and I wish the Mayor keep the schools open, no remote. I disagree with a lot of parents and teachers in the union. I think the Mayor should keep the school opens and do not go remote.
Brian Lehrer: Do you agree with the previous caller who also wants schools open for her kid that it will hurt your child, even if there's a remote option that you don't have to take advantage of?
Edson: Yes, definitely. I think we heard. Like all these studies and all the people that you've been interviewing, they always say that the kids should go to school. Socially, it's very, very important for them, so I totally agree, and I think the school should be open. On top of that, I just want to say that Mr. Lieberman keep me update, and at my daughter's school, more than 90% of the teachers got vaccinated, so it's very, very important. May I just say another thing, Brian, before I go?
Brian Lehrer: Yes.
Edson: When you mention Black and brown people, sounds like very condescending because most of the times, you put everybody in the same category. I'm from Brazil, I'm considered over here brown, but the way you talk is like you put everybody in the same category. When you say brown and Black, it's like, there is no diversity, even amongst Black and brown people.
Brian Lehrer: Well, that's a fair topic to bring up. I think that black and Brown is the generally accepted term these days. I know one of our reporters just used it. I don't remember whether it was Jessica or Jaclyn in describing the demographics of who has more tended to stay home or more tended to go in person when they have choice. It's what a lot of leaders of various Black and brown communities, if I may, prefer to use these days. It's what a lot of the people who are activists representing their communities tend to use. It's used in a broad way to distinguish from white primarily to make sure that we're talking about demographic differences, though obviously, there are many differences within any community. What would you prefer as terminology?
Edson: Well, that's a good question, but I just felt like when you say brown and Black, it's like brown and Black people are at the bottom of the social ladder, we don't graduate from college. I found it very condescending, that's the way I feel.
Brian Lehrer: Edson, thank you very much. He's the second caller, I don't expect you two to weigh in on this, Jessica and Jaclyn, you can if you want, but he's the second caller in recent times to object to the phrase, Black and brown. Yet this is what we're hearing all the time, we didn't start it. This is what, as I say, a lot of the activists, a lot of people who represent various Black and brown communities, various Latino groups, and there are, of course, so many, various African immigrant and African American groups, youth, Black and brown. Maybe we'll need to have a larger conversation about terminology. Jessica's an education reporter. If you even know, do you run into that terminology being used by people trying to represent families of color?
Jessica Gould: Well, I think that our new mayor, Eric Adams, has been invoking Black and brown families a lot, particularly in this debate using those terms. I think that's why we wanted to look at the demographics of who is staying home right now because Adams, and this is like de Blasio before him, has been saying that it's especially important for families of color, for lower-income families. I believe he used the term Back and brown to have access to all of the supports that schools provide and that closing schools is particularly damaging for them.
What we found last year with remote learning and what we're starting to see again in terms of who's staying home during this surge, is that it is a lot of the families of color, or it's schools with more families of color than white students or disproportionately more. We wanted to just fact-check the mayor on that as he invoked it, particularly last week.
Brian Lehrer: Right.
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: One thing that I'll add, if I can, I was nodding along with the caller, because like I am mad about this every day that like the categories in any data on demographics in New York City, whether it's COVID or anything else, it has a flattening effect and it does lump people together. For example, like Asian and Pacific Islander all lump together, that's like erasing a lot of diversity within that category. Same thing for indigenous people, like the categories are very flattening, and so I definitely agree with that aspect of what the caller said. It is a major limitation of the data.
Brian Lehrer: Yes. AAPI is a preferred term by many Asian American and Pacific Islanders, AAPI. A lot of people don't even know that term yet, but that's what a lot of activist groups, people who represent people from those various backgrounds prefer these days. So you say, it seems to kind of lump them together, and yet they do it so that it sounds inclusive and people don't just say Asians or Asian Americans, don't forget the Pacific Islander, so it's AAPI.
We say Black and brown here as a matter of respect or attempted respect to how people seem to want their various groups referred to. Obviously, no group is monolithic, and so people like Edson will dissent. I know there was a lot of conversation in the last few years about the term Latinx, for example, which some Latino/Latina activists wanted to be incorporated as the new dominant terminology. Then there are other people saying, what is this Latinx? This is a confection by the media or somebody, and they feel there's respected by it. What is the way that a show like this or any media outlet or any person in government or activism can most show respect to the many communities in New York and anywhere? It's an open topic for conversation and we need to discuss it openly.
All right, Brian Lehrer on WNYC, we will take a short break and then come back with our education reporter and our health and science data reporter, Jessica and Jaclyn, and play another clip of the school's chancellor on what it will actually take to set up this hybrid system starting now, they can't start it tomorrow. They're going to start-- well, they're still negotiating with the UFT, so we'll talk about what it'll take, stay with us.
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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we talk about the situation in the New York City public schools here during the Omicron surge and the new announcement by the school's chancellor and Mayor Adams that they're working towards setting up a remote system, a hybrid system so families can choose, now that a quarter of students have been staying home.
Anyway, my guests are WNYC education reporter Jessica Gould, and WNYC health and science data reporter Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky. Jessica, the mayor and chancellor are in negotiations with the Teachers' Union, the UFT, now for how to go hybrid. Here's another clip of the chancellor from yesterday citing the union and saying he can't just start a hybrid system tomorrow.
David Banks: You have to negotiate this stuff with the unions. That's why we're having a meeting today, one o'clock with the UFT, because parents, elected officials, and others have been putting pressure on them as well, to say, "We need a remote option." If they're willing to meet us halfway, I think we can create something. I think that's what we're hearing is that they're also recognizing we got to do something, even if it's in the short term. My goal is to create an option that will take us at the very least to the end of the school year, not just for two weeks or something, because it takes-- this is not an easy thing to just roll out a remote option. There are a lot of pieces to it.
Brian Lehrer: Chancellor Banks yesterday. Jessica, he referred to a one o'clock meeting that was going to take place yesterday. I don't know if you have reporting on what happened there between the Chancellor and the union leaders, but let us know if you do, and also, what do you see some of the specific questions on the table that need to be negotiated before they launch?
Jessica Gould: Yes, the Teachers' Union has been saying publicly that they support a remote option, they wanted it going into the school year for the people who were at risk going into the school year. I think that it would be a logistical feat to accomplish at this point, and I was talking to the head of the Principals' Union yesterday. He was saying it would take probably at least six weeks to pull this off, and even then, it would be really complicated because we're already facing major staffing shortages at schools.
Having a remote option, instead of pivoting fully to remote, which is not on the table, means that you have to either have teachers live stream, and sorry, there's a fire truck going by, I apologize for that, or you have teachers in charge of remote learning only, but that caused huge staffing shortages in and of itself last year that we saw, because we had to have these two different systems going on at the same time, and setting that all up anew in the middle of a school year, it's really challenging.
Brian Lehrer: Let's hear from another parent. Ola in the Bronx. Ola, you're on WNYC, thank you for calling in today.
Ola: Yes. Good morning, Brian. Los Angeles. I just was wondering if the reporter, I'm guessing they have coverage on charter schools, it looks like they're just making their own rules, and it's not consistent with what the DOE schools are considering. For instance, a child has been sent home for having his mask beneath his nose.
Brian Lehrer: Sorry, your phone broke up there. Your example was a child being sent home for what?
Ola: Yes, for his mask dropping beneath his nose. This is a first-grader, and we've actually, they wouldn't provide, they won't be. After that, they send the child, they're stressing out. As you know, there's a lot going on. We can't even go to work because we're not sure if the child is going to be sent home.
Brian Lehrer: Do you have a child in a charter school at this time?
Ola: Yes.
Brian Lehrer: What do you want? Do you want a remote option, or do you want no remote option?
Ola: I know it's a lot difficult. We will try to train the child on trying to keep up the mask throughout the school. We want our child in school, but if he's going to be sent home for having his mask beneath his nostrils, what's the fun of going to school? The rules are just very inconsistent. It's telling on me, it's affecting work.
Brian Lehrer: Yes, that happened to your kid with a mask?
Ola: Yes, it happened.
Brian Lehrer: I'm sorry to hear that. Ola, thank you for letting us know about that, and for your thoughts, please call us again. Jessica, the whole question of charter schools, do they get to have their own rules as they do on some other things if the regular district schools go hybrid?
Jessica Gould: Yes, I think that they do because I know that last year that many chose to go fully remote. The other thing that that caller brings up that I thought was interesting and I'm going to look into is whether charter schools have access to the same PPE that the city's traditional public schools have right now, personal protective equipment, masks that are being sent out, because I know last year, there was litigation over whether the city had to include charter schools in the testing program. That's something to look at.
In terms of masks, I'll just say that a couple of times in the last few weeks, we've gotten reminders mid-day as a parent. I have a kindergartner about helping them learn how to keep their masks on especially now because it's extremely anxiety-producing for educators and for parents. These masks are helping keep kids safe, and it's hard for little ones to keep them on all the time.
Brian Lehrer: We're going to leave it there for now. Obviously, much more to come as the talks between the city and the union proceed as to how and when to start a hybrid option for the New York City public schools the rest of the school year. We can tell from the calls that are coming in from parents that parents are very divided on this, they're at different camps, and everybody's individual situation is different. Teachers, thank you for your calls as well. Of course, we thank our education reporter Jessica Gould, and our health and science data reporter Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky, thanks for coming on.
Jessica Gould: Thank you.
Jaclyn Jeffrey-Wilensky: Thanks for having us.
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