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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're going to follow up now on the news that the mayor broke on the show here. We did not know he was going to say that, we did not expect that he was going to say that. Specifically, that the COVID test positivity rate has moved so quickly toward 3% that the schools could close as early as Monday. We're going to open up the phones for our final segment today for parents and teachers and anyone else directly involved on whether you think the system is doing the right thing, whether the mayor is doing the right thing by sticking to this 3% weekly average test positivity rate.

We don't have to go over all the details that we can of what that number actually means. I know that's a lot of words, but that's the threshold. You know that a lot of people, Scott Stringer, the controller who's running for mayor next year, Maya Wiley, the mayor's former counsel, who's running for mayor next year. The New York Times editorial board, which is not running for anything, they say no 3% is wrong and you've got it backwards. You should be closing all the bars and restaurants for indoor dining, not just imposing a 10:00 PM curfew.

The positivity rate in the schools is so low as the mayor has been touting all along that he should keep the schools open and continue to make it parent's choice. The teachers union doesn't want that. I saw Michael Mulgrew, the UFT president interviewed on TV, I guess Wednesday and he clearly wants the mayor to stick to the 3% threshold. Parents of in-school hybrid learning students, where are you on this? 646-435-7280. Help us report this story on parents' reactions, 646-435-7280, and teachers you too.

I realize it's a school day, so teachers who are teaching are not listening right now, but we know we get some teachers calling in on your prep periods, or some of you may be home on a sick day or for whatever reason. Teachers, we want your voices too. Are you down with your union membership? Do you want the mayor to stick strictly to this 3% positivity rate, shut down the system threshold, or with all the evidence that the transmission rates in schools generally and the New York City public schools, in particular, are extremely low?

Are you thinking? "This is really okay." Either way, give us a call. There's no right answer. 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. For people directly affected by this likely coming shut down of the public schools in New York City as early as Monday. It depends when they hit that 3% average threshold, but it went up halfway between yesterday and today to where it needs to go about two-tenths of a percent. If it goes another two-tenths of a percent in the next 24 hours they will be there. If you're directly affected on any side of it, 646-435-7280, let's have this conversation 646-435-7280. We'll go to your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC, by the way, sign up and tell your friends around the country about our daily politics podcast. It's called Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast. It's a national politics excerpt from the show every day and it's free wherever you get your podcasts. Brian Lehrer: A Daily Politics Podcast. To your calls teachers and parents on what seems to be coming as early as Monday though they don't know for sure in New York City, Anna in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Anna, thank you for calling in.

Anna: Hi, Brian. Thank you for having me on the show. I'd like to say that I support the mayor's decision to close schools at 3%. I think it's really important to keep our children, teachers, and their families safe. The mayor should go further and close nonessential businesses and indoor dining. I also think that while we're in this period, it's important to keep parents informed, not only about testing about all four specialized high schools, as one caller mentioned earlier, but also testing for gifted/talented programs. Thank you.

Brian: You're a parent of a student who's in the hybrid system right now going in-person some days, right?

Anna: Yes, I am.

Brian: Yet you want him to adhere to the 3% threshold, why that rather than giving you as the parent the individual choice, which you have to pull your child out.

Anna: Because as long as a lot of students continue to go to school, continue to use public transportation, as COVID rates go up, there'll be more people getting sick and that puts my kid more at risk, if he continues to go and also puts me more at risk as I go to work, as I use public transportation, as I interact with other people in the city.

Brian: Anna, thank you very much. Ellen, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ellen.

Ellen Hi Brian. I'm a parent of two kindergarteners in New York City public schools and I don't think makes sense to use the city-wide positive rate as the benchmark for shutting down the schools. Given as you discussed earlier with the mayor that the positive test rate in the schools 0.2%. Clearly, the increase we're seeing in the city's positive rate is not being driven by the school.

I think throughout this crisis, government at all levels has not prioritized the education of our children and we really need to do so now. If the schools are shut down next week like the mayor just said that might happen, I think that's only going to drive the disparity between what's the public school students are experiencing versus the private school students in our city.

Brian: Is there a point at which you would be concerned for your two kids, or by extension for yourself, if the positivity rate was 4%, 5%, or do you just want to look at what's going on in the particular school which they already do and I guess if there's an outbreak in a school they shut it down or quarantine individuals. At what point do you become concerned for your safety as the parent or for your kids?

Ellen: That's hard to answer. I'm not an epidemiologist, so I can't say what's the best percent level. It seems like using a city-wide rate, though to make decisions about the schools might not be the right way to think about it if you're seeing very different things happening in the city versus in the schools. I understand in March that was not the case, the outbreak was widespread in schools everywhere and so in that case it made sense, but here it doesn't seem to. I think perhaps the mayor could either consider a higher rate or consider something that's more school-specific rather than using the city-wide rate as the decision for what's happening with the schools.

Brian: Ellen, thank you very much. I'm going to go and get some other folks on. We appreciate your call Megan in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Megan.

Megan: Hi, Brian. I am the parent of a third-grader who is in blended learning at PS32 in Brooklyn, which I can't say enough good things about. Shout out to PS32, but I am extremely concerned about the mayor's announcement today on your show that he will or anticipating to switch back to remote learning for all students. My child is in the nest program which serves students with autism.

It's been amazing for him and he's not able to benefit from the remote instruction in the same way that he's able to benefit from the in-person days. The remote days are really difficult, full of meltdowns, and inability to engage with the screen and engage with his classmates on a remote basis. As other callers have said very eloquently the emphasis should be on seeing schools and education as an essential service.

Especially for students with disabilities, the challenges are huge, and for some students insurmountable when it is a remote setting. I know that district 75 schools have been prioritized for reopening along with early childhood in the fall. There are many students with disabilities and frankly, it sounds like his closure would not differentiate between students with special needs and those without. As a parent of a student with special needs, I'm sure I'm not the only one with concerns. Thank you for taking my call.

Brian: Were they offering, during the earlier all in out period, any services for your third grader with autism or other special needs kids that you were aware of?

Megan: Yes. He is offered services remotely. He gets occupational therapy and speech therapy in a group as well as counseling and those are offered remotely, for which I am extremely grateful. I think some of the one-on-one services are more translatable to the remote environment than the group speech sessions. He struggles with reading social cues in general and then adding the layer of Zoom to that is an extra hurdle so it's much less effective, I think.

Some of the one-on-one things are effective I think in our experience anyway, over the remote platforms and some just don't translate and most of the day I feel like we spend just trying to keep him able to attend. It's really different. It is a big equity issue; I think for students with disabilities.

Brian: Megan, thank you, and good luck to you and your family. We'll take a short break and then when we come back, our next caller is going to be Elizabeth in Manhattan, Elizabeth, hang on there because I see that you're in an interesting position. You have kids in hybrid learning and your husband's a public-school teacher so it will be really interested to get your perspective right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. If you're just joining us, the mayor broke some news on the show earlier this hour And that is that the city is so close to a 3% coronavirus test positivity rate that the entire public school system may shut down As early as Monday 3% is the threshold. We are potentially just one-day away considering the curve and how it's been rising through this week perhaps just one-day away from 3% for the weekly average. If we hit that tomorrow or Sunday, the schools are going to shut as of Monday in New York City and a lot of people think that's the wrong thing. Some people think it's the right thing. Some people think they've got it exactly backwards.

Indoor dining should completely be shut down for the moment, not just a 10:00 PM curfew, and the schools with the low transmission rates that they've had should stay open because of the social value, but some people agree with the mayor. We're getting your reactions as parents and as teachers, if any of you happen to be listening, we know it's the Workday, but if you're out there, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Elizabeth in Manhattan. You're on WNYC. Hi Elizabeth. Thanks for holding.

Elizabeth: No problem. Thanks for taking my call. I live in Peter Cooper Village. My two kids are in hybrid learning at PS40. In our zip code, I'm obsessed with New York Times Tracker COVID is virtually non-existent, also my husband is a public school teacher in Brooklyn one of the high schools and I think it's insane of the mayor to go by this 3% rate, as he pointed out himself a 0.16% rate in schools should be the guiding factor and if Staten Island is a problem for New York City, he should surgically shut down Staten Island, just like he did when Brooklyn certain areas became a problem.

Brian: Your husband who teaches in the public schools, he doesn't just want to get out of there?

Elizabeth: Not at all. He's a very proud UFT team member by the way and totally supports the union, but as the mayor himself said, this is not a union issue, my husband has really enjoyed going back to work and seeing the students. Also, to point out as a high school teacher a lot of his students, even though he can have up to nine kids in his room a day, a lot of them don't come every day. A lot of them stay home and then come in maybe once a month or twice a month, they come in to check-in, but I'll say it, he teaches at Brooklyn tech so he has more advanced students, I would say maybe more mature students who are okay with remote learning.

Brian: Elizabeth, thank you for checking in. Here's Betsy in Westchester, who also has a husband who's a New York City public school teacher. Hi, Betsy you're on WNYC.

Betsy: Hi, Brian, how are you?

Brian: Good. How are you? How's your husband? What do you think? What does he think?

Betsy: Good. I think this is a really nuanced issue. I think we're all in a really tough position here. My husband works at a middle school in the Bronx and he has also really enjoyed back sitting students, like Elizabeth's husband, he often sees one to two students a day. I really think that we don't account for that when we think about how low the transmission rate has been in the schools. We don't have nine students showing up every day. We don't have hundreds of students.

One of the things that we're not considering here is that people are about to opt back in hybrid learning, the rate is growing exponentially and then he also has the issue where the windows have to stay open, in the classroom the kids are starting to get really cold. They're distracted because of the cold.

On top of that, he has teachers at his school who are traveling out of state and coming back and not quarantining before-- They're lying essentially on their intake form every morning and not quarantining before coming into the classroom, exposing the students, exposing him, exposing the other teachers. They actually just had their first positive test this morning, which obviously given the rise in the area is concerning. I think that we need to close now, but reopen with a more nuanced approach that is borough-to-borough, we need to re-examine the-- We honestly need to not take this all or nothing open or shut approach. We need to--

Brian: It's interesting that we've had two people now reflect on something, I've also heard outside that the quality of life for the teachers has actually been improved from normal in the sense that with hybrid, you don't have that many kids in a class so that is very interesting to hear that coming out, that quality of life enhancement and yet Betsy, I hear everything else you're saying too. I'm going to get some other folks in. Sonya, in South Brooklyn you're on WNYC. Sonya, thank you for calling. Hi.

Sonya: Hi, Brian. How are you? I've been teaching for 21 years. I teach in a middle school. I just heard the mayor say that it's a possibility that the schools will be shut down starting on Monday. I was in what would be considered [unintelligible 00:18:47] last month and my school did not shut down. It's a little bit of frustration because a lot of the callers are saying that the teachers like you said before, the quality of life is improving. I don't know where the city folks are getting that idea since majority of the teachers are putting in so many hours of their own time adjusting to online teaching.

I am coming in as an in-person teacher so I have kids who are in front of me in the classroom. I have about five kids in each of the sections that I teach. Plus, I have at least 35 who are real old and online with me at the same time. I don't know if that quality of life. Curriculum even though we are very adaptable as teachers, the idea that we're not working as hard or we're not doing the best we can, it just seems a little insulting to me that many of us are putting in at least three or four hours plus we have our children at home that we have to--

Brian: I don't think I've heard a lot of people blaming teachers and obviously if you're in-- I thought they had protected teachers against this, but from your story, I guess not having to teach to in-person and a remote audience at the same time. Sonya, you're going to get our last word here in our last 20 seconds. Do you support the 3% threshold?

Sonya: Yes. The percentage at my school has been very low. We've not had any kids test positive, fortunately, and teachers are very cautious with how we conduct our classes. I am okay with the 3% and I do a lot of teaching in person. I like to see my students.

Brian: You're saying even though there's a very low case rate at your school you're okay with shutting down the whole system at 3%?

Sonya: No, Whatever needs to be done should be done, but the last minute notice I feel from the mayor on Friday afternoon letting the teachers know that Monday might be a possibility--

Brian: We're out of time I apologize. Yes, everybody feels whiplash from all these last-minute notices. Thank you all for your calls.

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