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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. How are your first days of school going around the region, whether in-person or remote? I just found out that our newscaster, David First, is one of the parents at that very school that I mentioned that has already closed because of a COVID case. David, you there?

David First: Oh, yes, I'm here, and so is my son. He's home today.

Brian: Oh, my goodness. Thank you for jumping on with us. This is Chatham, New Jersey. What happened?

David: Well, my son goes to high school here in Chatham, New Jersey. He is attending school, in-person. It's in-person one day, virtual the next. That's the version of school we decided to do. We got that call last night, really late, after 11:00 PM. The superintendent sent out a message to parents saying that the district was notified about a case of COVID-19, involving a student who attended the high school this week. Tuesday was the first day. In this message, it says the high school would shut down for the rest of the week, that's today and tomorrow, so it can assess how to handle the situation. He says the district is going to be working with the local department of health officials regarding the next steps. I'm sure we're going to find out more later today about contact tracing and how long the school may remain closed. My son is currently online doing it virtually here today. I got to say, really quiet, while I'm also broadcasting from home here in my little home office.

Brian: That's very good, very mature.

David: Yes.

Brian: Do you get the sense that they were ready in the school for this, that they had a protocol already in place, or like some places, suddenly, their hair is all on fire and they're like, "Oh my god, it's a case, what are we going to do?"

David: I do get the sense that they were prepared for this and were preparing us for this in many messages over the summer, saying, "Here's what the plan is, and here's what might happen. Here's what you need to be prepared for." You need to be able to turn on a dime as a parent if you're getting that message that 11:15 PM the night before you are expecting your child to be heading out to school. Yes, I do think that they were prepared for this. As of right now, we know that they're shutting down for two days. I don't know what the protocol will be if they find out more information.

Brian: All right. Well, very interesting. Maybe an example of something that a lot of other parents can look forward to, if look forward is the right term. David First, thanks for jumping on with us. I hope this didn't deter you too much from preparing the news because I know you have to come back in a few minutes.

David: I'll be ready to talk to you soon.

Brian: Thank you. Some of you can hear my neighbor, Ruddy, in the background. Hello, Ruddy, good boy, good boy. Ruddy is out in the hallway and some of you can hear him. Joan in Mamaroneck, you're on WNYC. Hi, Joan.

Joan: Hi, Brian. My daughter's going to be starting next week and she's going to be doing-- My town is either doing hybrid or remote, and she's going to be going hybrid. She's going to be in the afternoon cohort, which means that she can be in school for two and a half hours a day, five days a week. During the morning, she'll be doing remote learning. This week has been remote digital orientation for that. My son is a pre-K student who just started at a school that goes from pre-K to eighth grade through the New York State Archdiocese. Today was his first day. It was a half-day. I haven't picked him up yet but-

Brian: First day of Pre-K.

Joan: Yes.

Brian: That's such a big day in his life.

Joan: It is. Well, it's his second year of pre-K-

Brian: Oh, I see.

Joan: -doing pre-K4 not pre-K3, but yes, thank you.

Brian: The Catholic schools are going fully in-person, is that right?

Joan: Fully in-person, five days a week.

Brian: You're good with that?

Joan: I am. The school has really taken such pains to make it a safe and buttoned welcoming environment for the students. He has 26 students in his class, but with the way that they're accommodating that is by knocking down-- They basically have them in a pre-K auditorium-type setting, where it's very, very, very large classroom. They knocked down walls. They got rid of the gym and cafeteria space to accommodate larger classes in spread-out areas. I think they're doing a really good job. I'm excited to see how the school year goes. Also, there's a little trepidation, but I think it's going to be good and my fingers are crossed.

Brian: Are they having your pre-K kid wear a mask?

Joan: They are.

Brian: They are? That young?

Joan: Yes. We've been preparing him for that all summer. He's good to go.

Brian: Joan, thank you so much for checking in. I hope everything goes great. Call us again. Allison in Manahawkin, you're on WNYC. Hello, Allison.

Allison: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. I have four kids who went back to school, hybrid model, yesterday. We're the mainland town right off of Long Beach Island, so it's a big summer hotspot. What my kids have noticed since they started returning back to sports in July and things is that we actually welcomed a whole lot of families that stayed in their summer homes. They have a lot of new students with them this year, and it's pretty cool. It's definitely changed the way in which schooling is happening. We're split with A through L, one day a week, and then, M through Z. The district was ready to go five full days a week. They let the parents vote, and the parents voted for hybrid. Instead of a 2000 students high school, it's 1000 each day, so a little bit different. I was stressed by how many people from New York, North Jersey, and the Philadelphia area decided to stay down year-round and send their kids here.

Brian: Were you one of the parents who voted for the hybrid model?

Allison: I actually voted for the five day, which I was surprised that I ended up going that route. My daughter is a senior, and she's been working through this whole thing. She's scooped ice cream, and she was an essential worker, I guess. I saw the precautions they were taking at her job, and she got through the summer and spring with no infection rate amongst them and they're all teenagers. I was confident in what the district put out as far as their precautions and how they would handle it and seeing how well my kids adapted to it to letting them go five days, but now, they're on hybrid. [laughs]

Brian: The people who you referred to from New York and Philly who have second homes in the Long Beach Island area and decided to stay there and send their kids to school there, is it because with this hybrid model, they will have more in-person schools and they would have back home or because they would have less? Do you have a sense of that?

Allison: Some of the parents I've spoken to chose it because their school districts hadn't announced whether or not there would be in-person schooling. They wanted to be able to give something definitive to their kids for the fall. Then, other parents said that they had been down here since March, and that the families really acclimated to the towns and where they're living now and that they just felt that it was a better option for their kids while we go through the pandemic, that they felt more comfortable sending their kids to in-person here. We do have the option-- Families were able to opt-in to the fully remote if they chose, but most of the families that are here from up north or west chose the hybrid model.

Brian: Allison, thank you so much for all that. Good luck to you and all four of your kids.

Allison: Thank you very much. Have a good day.

Brian: We haven't had a Connecticut one on yet. Let's go to David in Wilma. David, you're on WNYC, thanks for calling in. Hi.

David: Hey, Brian. That's Wilton, Connecticut.

Brian: Oh, Wilton, right, of course. Hi.

David: I have a lot of similarities to your previous two callers. I have three children, were in the back of the alphabet, and they returned to school today in a hybrid model. They're in kindergarten, going into second and going into fourth. Like I told you your screener, the only person or the only one depressed today when they left was the dog. The kids were thrilled to leave. [laughs] They really were. It was genuinely exciting. For our kindergartner, who has had the introduction to school through a virtual interface, that one's been the hardest. I'll tell you, I'm going to work today a little bit happier that she's back in school, in a real school.

Brian: Do you feel like they're prepared in the case of cases because it sounds like you're pretty confident? I know parents are all over the map with fear levels.

David: It's very similar to what your previous callers were saying. They pushed us back one week. We were supposed to start in-person, and that was last week, and that became a digital orientation. It did spark some concerns among parents that we were going to continue to be pushed back. I think around our town, today and this week, there's a little bit more confidence. You're hearing a lot of parents saying fingers crossed, and we heard your colleague telling his story about their district. Today, just a shout out to the parents, to the teachers, administrators, and like everyone else crossing those fingers.

Brian: Mine are crossed for you, David, and for your family. Thank you very much. Now, we have a few people I see calling in where there have already been cases in their kid's school. Maryanne in Hackettstown is one of them. Hey, Maryanne, thank you so much for checking in. You're on WNYC.

Maryanne: Hi. Brian, I have four kids in three different schools here in Hackettstown. I have to tell you that the Board of Ed and the superintendent had been working incredibly hard all summer to get their return-to-school plans in place. We went back to school September 3rd, and it was literally first hour, first day and they had a parent call up that their child had gotten back a positive COVID test result. They jumped into action to what their plan was, anyone who was in that classroom with that student has to quarantine for 14 days, I think including the teacher. They disinfected. They evacuated the school for a while. They did some extra cleaning, and then, they went back into their regular program. The high school schedule is alternating days. Half of the population goes one day, half of the population goes the other day for half the day, and then, your remote virtual from the rest of the time. The middle school, everyone goes from 8:30 to 12:30, and then, you're virtual for the afternoon. The elementary school, half the population goes for three hours in the morning, and then, virtual, and then, this flip, half the population goes in-person in the afternoon and they're virtual in the mornings.

Brian: Wow.

Maryanne: Everyone has masks. They're spacing out the kids in the classroom. For classrooms that they can't space out, they have plexiglass around each individual desk. They're really trying. We don't know how long it's going to last, but they do have a lot of plans in place. Drop off has been the worst for the elementary school because it's just so many cars and it's just a bit of chaos. Other than that hiccup that we're still trying to work out, I would say, so far so good, but that's just because my expectations are low.

Brian: From what you just described though, is your head exploding from having four kids, each of whom has a different system, it sounds like?

Maryanne: It's really complicated. I noticed yesterday that one of the hardest things is the virtual time because my second-grader, third-grader now, goes in the morning. He's similar to his brother's schedule. Some of my high school son's friends live too far away to be able to walk back home, because it's a walking district, to be able to walk home, have lunch, and then, log back on so some of his friends just come to my house. I had six kids in the house yesterday in the afternoon trying to find quiet corners with laptops, trying to log on to virtual classrooms where teachers are on seeing them. It's not just doing your homework online, you're visible and reacting and participating in class. That was a little tricky trying to find corners. I'm not sure how long our Wi-Fi can handle it, but I'm hoping it works out.

Brian: That's not a good adult-to-child ratio in the best of times.

Maryanne: No, it's not.

Brian: Nevermind.

Maryanne: The two dogs don't enjoy it either.

Brian: Do you have any impression of how well say set-up they are in every kid's schools for the remote learning compared to the spring?

Maryanne: They're trying to do it much more as a live instruction. In the spring, there was a lot of just recording videos, putting them online. Kids are just going on, reviewing, doing assignments, and doing feedback back and forth. Right now, they've got webcams coming in for the teachers to just be teaching simultaneously to the kids who are present and the kids who are online because roughly 30% of the town has keeping their kids home anyway, full-time. They're also receiving that instruction at the same time. It's clumsy, but it's new. I sat in and watched when my third-grader had to be virtual for the first-half day, and my heart goes out to these teachers because it's not easy to be trying to address your kids in class and constantly address the kids who are online to keep them engaged. They can see all the kids on camera so they know who's there. They can call them and they answer questions. It's going to take some adjusting to smooth it out a little bit, but really, my heart goes out to the teachers because-

Brian: Yes, absolutely.

Maryanne: -they're putting in 150%. They really are.

Brian: That's such a vivid description of something that I personally hadn't thought about. I was thinking of the hybrid model as your home one day just with other remote kids in a Zoom or whatever and you're in school just with other in-person kids on other days. You're telling me that hybrid, in some of these cases at least, means they are remote kids Zooming in and there are in-person kids. They're all with the teacher trying to teach both groups at the same time. Wow.

Maryanne: That's right.

Brian: Let me ask you one more quick follow-up question. When you talked about the case in your child's school, was that in your own child's class so your child is quarantining now?

Maryanne: No, it was not. I do know some of the sick kids in that classroom, but no, none my kids were affected. They're still going into the building.

Brian: Maryanne, thank you so much for checking in. Good luck to all of you. Let's do one more. Fred in Rockland, you're on WNYC. Hi, Fred.

Fred: Hey, Brian, thank you for taking my call. I won't go through this again. I called right away, and pretty much very similar to the situation that David relay but I'll just add--

Brian: For people who are just tuning in, he's referring to David First, our newscaster, who's going to be on in a minute to cast the news, talking about his kid in the Chatham school system being sent home because there was already a case. They've closed the school in that case for a couple of days. Fred, go ahead and tell your story. Thanks.

Fred: Yes, sure. The only Catholic high school in Rockland County, the kids went back on Tuesday. Yesterday was the second day for the seniors, and I believe they patch with the sophomores. She went in eight o'clock, and then, 8:30, we got a call that they had someone with COVID. They had to pretty much send them back on 10 o'clock. I can tell you, the school, they did a lot of prep to be ready for doing a hybrid type of model. I wasn't shocked because I've been playing around with some of my daughter and then some of the other kids, kids in college who went back to school, and I said, "Hey, enjoy those few days in September because I think by the end of September, all the schools would be back to a patrol." I wasn't surprised at all. It's just a tough time we're going through. These administrators have done a fabulous job, at least, in my daughter's school. I really feel sorry that the kids had to be back home. It's the same thing, they're waiting on Sunday, we'll get some type of a decision whether or not they're going to continue virtual or if they'll be back in school.

Brian: Does your daughter need to get tested now because of the case in the school? Was she considered exposed?

Fred: We got another email from the principal saying-- Of course, because of confidentiality, they couldn't, but they assure that kids who came in contact with that subject was-- They were notified. We weren't notified. Her and her friend came home yesterday, spent the rest of the day, and now, we're just on a holding pattern.

Brian: Fred, good luck with that and with both of your kids. Thanks to all of you for your calls on this. I think we got a representative, if anything can be representative, sample of just how unrepresentative everything is in an individual case around the area, so, so many different situations and attempts at making this work. Like the previous caller, I really feel for the teachers trying to do this in whatever system, the local school system has set-up. Obviously, we will continue to cover this as the school year progresses. Tomorrow, we're going to do a version of this same thing for college because we know that many of you who have gone back to college or just gone for the first time or your kids are going, everything is different in so many of the colleges and universities around the country. Did you hear yet about the one in Peoria in Illinois where they've now quarantined the entire student body in place? I saw that headline. I don't even know what that means, and that they're going to figure out now what to do with them after there was an outbreak of multiple cases and there's a different system in every school it seems.

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