Checking In On the NYC School Reopening Plan

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. The first day of school is less than five weeks away for New York City public schools, even sooner in lots of other local districts, and nobody wants a repeat of last year's chaotic disruptions and COVID-related closures. We're already getting calls from some of you on the show, from parents, for example, who say, you're not being sufficiently informed about what the opening will involve.

As we discussed on the show earlier this week, there are concerns among public health officials that the Delta variant poses a serious risk to children, particularly children under 12, who aren't yet eligible to be vaccinated. As the Delta variant surges, vaccination rates lag even for adults and teens in much of the city. Some families and educators writes New York Times education reporter, Eliza Shapiro, are wondering if a school reopening plan that seemed like a sure bet just a few weeks ago will be threatened. With me now is Eliza Shapiro, New York Times reporter covering New York city education. Hey Eliza, thanks for doing this. Welcome back to WNYC.

Eliza Shapiro: Hi

Brian Lehrer: Let me start here with you. So far, what's been communicated to parents about the reopening in general? What are they being told to expect for the first day of school?

Eliza Shapiro: Sure. There's a lot we know, and there's a lot we're still trying to figure out with, as you said, about five weeks left. I think one really important thing to remind parents, we're seeing these incredibly divisive fights about mask mandates all over the country that are getting really, really ugly. That is not relevant to us in New York City, everyone regardless of vaccination status will be masked in all New York City public schools.

We also know, and the mayor said it not three minutes ago during his briefing this morning that every single school as of now will be open for full-time in-person instruction, no remote options. No more hybrid, kids going three days a week, and then home two days a week, no more full-time remote. It's going to look much more like a normal school year.

Brian Lehrer: Based on your reporting, and we can invite some listeners in, how controversial is that, the no remote option, no hybrid option, even for families who feel that's the safest thing, or maybe even the best educationally for their particular child?

Eliza Shapiro: It's interesting. I've been on the phone this week interviewing some folks who have been actually door-knocking around the city, just getting in touch with parents who were remote last year, or who schools haven't heard from in awhile saying, "How are you feeling about coming back?" I have been surprised by how much these folks I'm talking to, some of whom are affiliated with the teacher's union are saying the vast majority of parents are talking to are saying, "I'm ready, it's time to go back, maybe I have some lingering concerns, I have questions about distancing and class sizes, should my kid wear two masks or one?" What I'm hearing largely is that folks are ready.

I think one good hint we have is that Success Academy, which is the city's biggest charter school network opened early this year, opened a few weeks ago. The vast majority of parents, even though there is a short-term remote option, the vast majority of parents decided to come back. That is what I am hearing from folks. It's certainly not universal, there is a real contingent of parents who want to see a remote option, but the game has completely changed from last summer when obviously most parents decided not to send their kids back in September.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we have time to take a few questions and comments about the reopening of public schools with Eliza Shapiro, New York Times reporter covering New York City education, parents, educators, public school staff, how are you feeling about going back or sending your kids back to school now that the first day is approaching? Are you being given enough information for one thing?

646-435-7280, if not, what outstanding questions do you have about what it's going to be like or what you're supposed to do? 646-435-7280. If you are being told to plan, do the back-to-school plans in your district make sense to you? Now is when we need to be talking about it, right now at the last minute. Give us a call, 646-435-7280, or tweet your question or comment @BrianLehrer. Students are welcome to call in too. Eliza, does Mayor de Blasio's vaccination requirement for city employees include teachers?

Eliza Shapiro: We have an interesting measure that has been adopted all around the country in recent weeks. Basically, by the first day of school, all teachers will either have to be vaccinated or submit to weekly testing. California became the first state in the country to mandate that statewide yesterday. This is an increasingly popular measure, but the problem is, it doesn't seem to be necessarily keeping up with how ferocious the spread of Delta has become.

Really the question now I think, is will the city take steps to just completely mandate shots for teachers? No test or shot, just shot basically. I know the city is exploring that and I know Michael Mulgrew, who's the head of the teacher's union, he's not enthusiastic about that, but he has told his members to prepare for that. I think that's the next frontier we're going to see is, no more option of getting out of your vaccine by getting a test, but rather just simply being required to.

I just want to add, the mayor just announced maybe 10 minutes ago, one more potential incentive for that, which is that the city is going to continue a policy it has in place this summer, where vaccinated students and teachers will not have to quarantine if there are positive cases in a school. It will be much less disruptive, the more kids and teachers have their shot.

Brian Lehrer: Explain that. If there's a positive case or more in a particular class, the rest of the students from that class and the teachers can continue to go in person if they've all been vaccinated?

Eliza Shapiro: We're going to get the exact numbers. You may remember from last year, there were very specific thresholds of how many positive cases would trigger potential quarantines. What we do know at this point is that if there are multiple cases in a classroom or a school, that trigger a quarantine, the short-term quarantine, it looks like students and teachers, and staff who are vaccinated will not have to quarantine. That will lead presumably to much less disruption than we had last year.

Brian Lehrer: Did the mayor say anything about if that would change if some of those testing positive were vaccinated? We know there've been various breakthrough outbreaks, the Provincetown story, the New York Yankees story, clusters of people together in the same place who are vaccinated, who all get COVID?

Eliza Shapiro: I think this is why we pretty urgently need details from the city about what their testing protocol is going to be. I think in my mind at this point, that is the single biggest unanswered question. It's not because the city is not working on this, of course, but we really need to know how robust, how frequent the texting is going to be. For example, there is a debate across the country about whether you bother testing vaccinated students. Now in Los Angeles, they decided that they're going to, because as we see there are breakthrough cases.

I think the city is working all of that out now, I think so much about what quarantining looks like and simply how disruptive the year is going to be, will be decided in the fine print of the testing protocol.

Brian Lehrer: Of course we should mention if we're going to talk about breakthrough cases that those clusters were among on mass people in non ventilated spaces, in the case of Provincetown, and that the cases among vaccinated people tended overwhelmingly to be mild or not very serious, and so not to leave a false impression about how much breakthrough COVID happens or how it happens. John, an assistant principal in Harlem, you are on WNYC. Hi John.

John: Hey there, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to call in and express from the DOE administrative level our frustrations and how hard we are working to help prepare our schools for students to come in. I agree with The New York Times reporter that you have on, that our kids are tremendously excited to come back to school, families, and students, they're excited to come in, they're excited to be here to the point where our school is a summer youth employment work site, and we have even more kids who call and show up and say, "I know it's summer, but can I help? If you need any help we want to be in the schools."

The frustration that we're facing right now is that we continue to wait for guidance from the DOE on specific granular level things that will help us plan for the fall. That is specific stuff with, what is the number of feet of distancing for kids in classrooms? What does it look like for passing periods? What should our cafeteria time look like? As I'm sure you and all the listeners know, the vast majority of DOE buildings are co-located, so we have multiple schools in one building, which even further complicates the waiting time that we're having on these policy level things.

Because we're not just having to organize our own school, we have to do that and do it in cooperation with the other schools that are in our buildings. We are sitting here instead of twiddling our thumbs waiting, we're making two in three different contingency plans so that once we finally get specific guidance, we're ready to go, and it's a waste of time. It's unfortunate that the DOE hasn't given us as much guidance as we should have.

Brian Lehrer: Eliza, can you help John, or describe what the mayor might say to that question?

Eliza Shapiro: Sure, John. Obviously, my heart really goes out to you. I know principals and assistant principals have been through it in the last year and a half in just a remarkable way. Folks were not able to take any time off, and this idea of making a plan A and plan B and Plan C is very familiar unfortunately for every principal and assistant principal in the city. I am certainly expecting that we will hear more news in the coming days as the mayor comes back from his vacation.

To just take one thread of what you said, which I think is really important on distancing, we know that the CDC has said 3 feet of distance where possible is ideal. If you can't do it, in-person is still better. If you have to go to 2 feet or 1 foot or no distancing, following the CDC is still saying in-person is better. I think it's worthwhile to really tell parents, and these are discussions I've had with the head of the city's principals union, that parents should not necessarily expect in every classroom, in every common space, certainly in every cafeteria, that there will be a perfect 3 feet of distance.

There will be in many classrooms and common spaces and cafeterias, but just, I think, to set expectations, especially for parents who have not been in schools since March 2020, and I know you folks are probably trying to set expectations as well, that the distancing is going to be a bit of an art not a science in every school. It's going to be building by building dependent, co-location, crowded hallways, cramped auditoriums, these are all realities of the New York City school system.

Brian Lehrer: John, I hope that's helpful. Thank you for your call, and thanks for your service as an assistant principal. Next question comes via a listener on Twitter who asks, "With a mask mandate, will kids have to mask outside during gym and recess?" Do you know?

Eliza Shapiro: I should know that. I think that they will have to, but I'm just going to text the DOE right now and confirm it and I'll tell you as soon as I hear back. Let me just ask them quickly.

Brian Lehrer: In that case, let's go to Natasha in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi, Natasha.

Natasha: Hi. I was calling because I was interested in finding out-- First of all, I agree with the assistant principal who has just spoken. The assistant principals, the principals, the staff, the teachers, they've all been working double, triple, quadruple times. I was curious to know at this point in time with regards to the distancing, and I'm glad that your presenter explained a little bit more about that, the 3 feet of distance isn't absolutely necessary.

I'm just curious at this point, building by building, how much say, does the individual school or building have with? For example, if they can't do 3 feet, do they have the power or the influence to say that we're not going to do face to face five days a week? Also, how much influence does the teachers union have at this point in time with regards to any barriers that they see or may not agree with that would affect the face-to-face school? Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Eliza?

Eliza Shapiro: Good question. Just to get to the previous question, I just confirmed with the city that yes, the mask mandate is relevant for indoors and outdoors. Just wanted to confirm that, and great question on distancing. It really is school by school, in other words, principal A is going to have to figure out how their cafeteria works to get as few kids in there as possible during meals because obviously, kids can't wear masks. School A might say, "We're going to use our huge outdoor space or gym" and school B might have a completely different plan, so that means every school is going to look a little different in terms of distancing.

What that doesn't mean is that schools can decide to just go hybrid because it's too complicated. The mayor has said every school essentially must offer full-time, five-day a week. There's a little asterisk here, which I don't think anyone should panic about. Some extremely overcrowded schools and there are not many of them, but some schools, particularly high schools are just unbelievably overcrowded.

Those schools have in pre-COVID days sometimes relied on staggered schedules to get everyone in the building and in their classrooms. That means some kids show up at 8:00, some can show up at 9:00. There may be a little bit more of that in overcrowded high schools but that is certainly not the same as hybrid. I don't think that you should expect, unless there's a big city-wide change, that some schools can just decide to offer hybrid. I don't think that that's going to happen.

Good question about the teachers union. Obviously, that union has had a ton of influence over school reopening over the last year and a half. In my conversations with Michael Mulgrew, who runs the union, completely different from last year or last summer, the union is genuinely on board with school reopening. They want all schools to open five days a week. They are obviously very eager for more information about testing and quarantining, but the political situation is very different because the union is actually supporting the city's plan. I would expect much less friction in the coming weeks.

Brian Lehrer: It's really pretty newsworthy and Natasha, thank you for those good questions, really pretty newsworthy that Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the National Union, just recently said that school districts should require teachers to get vaccinated against COVID. That's a rare endorsement by a union leader of a mandate for their members, right?

Eliza Shapiro: You know what's interesting, I saw that on Sunday morning, and I said, "Whoa, okay. This is a huge deal. The cities could roll this out in a day or two." But I think Randi Weingarten left herself a little bit of an out there by saying, "It is my personal opinion that we should go to all mandates." The AFT, her union, is talking about a resolution this week. Then I spoke to Michael Mulgrew a day or two after that, and he did not-

Brian Lehrer: He is the local chapter president.

Eliza Shapiro: The local chapter. Exactly, the United Federation of Teachers is the largest local of the American Federation of Teachers. He was not ready to commit yet. Basically, what he said is, "It's up to everyone in the city to get vaccinated and protect our kids, our teacher vaccination rates are very high." I think it's increasingly looking inevitable that there will be some mandate that does not allow for testing as an out, but there's a lot of mealy-mouthed language going on right now.

Of course, in order to keep everyone safe in schools, which is the whole ballgame, it would probably make more sense to roll that out before school starts but there's clearly some political and legal issues to be worked through.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, listeners, if you're interested in that particular conversation, Randi Weingarten will be among our guests on Monday's show. Evan, incoming high school freshman in Manhattan. Evan, you're on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.

Evan: Hello. I'm going to be a freshman at LaGuardia studying technical theater and I think that without going in-person full time, it's going to be impossible to get the most out of an experience like that. I think that many people's grades also dropped including mine because of online school, and it's incredibly hard to get the full learning experience out of it.

Brian Lehrer: You're really glad you're going back in person. I don't want to ask personal information about you on the radio so I'll ask your opinion. Do you think that the vast majority of your high school peers are going to be vaccinated and how do you feel about safety if they're not?

Evan: I do think that most of them will be vaccinated. Just judging by who I've talked to, at least every one I've talked to is vaccinated, so I can't see there being a vast majority unvaccinated. If there are some unvaccinated, I would be worried for their health but because I am fully vaccinated, I wouldn't be too worried about my health.

Brian Lehrer: What, for the record, was the hardest part of being a remote student?

Evan: I think it was getting the full experience out of what my teachers are trying to give me, and I couldn't learn as well.

Brian Lehrer: Evan, thanks so much, and good luck at LaGuardia. We really appreciate you chiming in. Interesting on those couple of points, right? Both looking forward to going back and what was tough about remote learning?

Eliza Shapiro: Yes, I first of all congratulations to Evan on getting into LaGuardia. Second of all, I've spoken to so many kids of all ages over the last year and a half and remote learning is just unbelievably difficult. The mayor has been consistent, basically, since March 2020, that remote learning will never replace in person. I think that is certainly the consensus for pretty much every single kid that I speak to. On the vaccination question, I think the city is beginning to the numbers tick up of kids 12 to 17, in other words, eligible kids who are being vaccinated.

It's about half of all kids in the city now that could include some private school kids to some Catholic school kids so we don't know how many of those are public school students, but it looks like the numbers are taking up, not close where the city wants them to be yet, but we're getting there at least for middle and high schoolers.

Brian Lehrer: Is the city keeping track of the number of public school students who have been vaccinated, are the numbers reliable?

Eliza Shapiro: Well, we don't know yet. This is one frustrating thing. All we know is just everyone in the city, age 12 to 17 who has gotten a shot, so they could go to any school. They don't necessary have to be public school students. Obviously, the majority of students in that age bracket go to public schools, but it will mean that it's actually under 50% of public school kids at this moment that can change obviously in the next month. We don't have exact numbers yet.

Brian Lehrer: Is there any opt-out for teaching remotely for teachers who have underlying conditions or who were over 65 or anything like that?

Eliza Shapiro: Basically we're going back to the old system that teachers had pre-COVID, which means if you have a medical emergency or something that means that it's not safe for you to teach in person, you may get an exemption, but it would be the same numbers and same rules as we had pre-COVID. It wouldn't be you're over 65 and you're worried about catching COVID in the classroom. You would not be able to have an exemption as far as I know at this time.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, why is school starting so late in the city, September 14th, later than most normal years, and this year they have to make up for lost time from last year and all 13th. I'm sorry, Monday the 13th, last time from last year.

Eliza Shapiro: We're starting really late. It's a cork of the calendar, pretty bad timing for such an important year. New York City schools always start after Labor Lay. Labor Day is a little late this year, New York City schools also allow always at least two days for teachers to come in before the kids come in and that got messed up because Rosh Hashanah and the Jewish holidays are so late this year. One frustrating thing is that kids go back on the 13th, but Yom Kippur is in the second half of the week so kids will be off I think on the Thursday of the first week. The first few weeks will be a little challenging, and it's just like that calendar luck for this year.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. It's actually the Jewish holidays are so early this year. Rosh Hashanah is the day after labor day.

Eliza Shapiro: I see. Then typically kids would start school and then have offer Rosh Hashanah but not this year.

Brian Lehrer: Well, let me take one more call to get a Branford New Jersey view from Amanda, who's a third-grade teacher. Hi Amanda.

Amanda: Hi. I just wanted to call in and say that I did teach in-person, not my idea, but we all go to vacation and I was very proud to do it and I did see that it was better for students. We were hybrid, but we were half-day and we were very successful, but I'm feeling very apprehensive as a teacher knowing so little about what my year is going to look like and how the city may or may not and my students would be compromised by all this optimism about how safe we'll be in a full day environment where we'll be closer and eating lunch, doing other things.

When we know that Delta has a different viral load kids can get it do spread it so can vaccinated people, even if you are asymptomatic children and adults can have other underlying health problems that come out of getting COVID. I would have another year that's effective, but I also had to be realistic about what the cost of some of these reopening ideas might be on us. I'm curious to figure out how we're all going to face it when the eventuality of people getting sick, possibly really sick comes to pass.

I really hope that that doesn't happen and that we can be thoughtful about it. I am concerned with teachers and students. I feel like we should know much more and that we deserve to know much more after what we're all putting out there for each other.

Brian Lehrer: Amanda, thank you. Thank you for your service as a teacher and for raising those questions. We've got under a minute left, but I think about the private companies, Eliza, that had previously made plans to bring all the workers back to the office and now because of Delta have either postponed or otherwise changed their plans, it sounds like the public schools not so much.

Eliza Shapiro: Yes. I think Amanda's right. It is a different situation this year compared to last year, we have the massive, massive plus of vaccines. We have the big minus of Delta and the fact that there's simply going to be more kids in the classroom. We know schools in New York City, at least for very safe, had very low transmission last year, but we know the situation is going to be different. I think there is real value in prioritizing in-person education for kids over, for example, my return to my corporate office in Times Square.

I think all experts I've ever spoken to have said put schools first and I think that is more of what we are doing now as a society, but it is certainly not risk-free and I deeply empathize with the anxiety and need for more details and I hope we get them very, very severe.

Brian Lehrer: Education reporter Eliza Shapiro, whose Midtown office is the New York Times building. Thanks for being with us. We so appreciate it.

Eliza Shapiro: Thanks, Brian.

 

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