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Brian: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC, good morning, everyone. Six days and counting before New York City is scheduled to have the only big city school system in America to hold in-person classes for this pandemic year fall, but some teachers are intensifying their opposition to the city's plan, staging several, what they call, workouts, arguing that they would prefer to work outside of the school than in a classroom they consider unsafe.

Yesterday, the activist faction of the United Federation of Teachers, the union, More UFT that faction is known as, involved teachers at six schools in these so-called workouts. They cited issues having to do with lack of ventilation, school cleaning, and concern over whether the city's contact tracers are moving quickly enough after 55 Department of Education staffers so far have already tested positive as of Friday. The mayor points out that that's 55 out of tens of thousands and the positivity rate is like one-third of 1%, but here's UFT President, Michael Mulgrew, on Friday, talking about how union members took it upon themselves to release the whereabouts of the positive cases because those in charge of test and trace were taking too long.

Michael Mulgrew: Then they're angry, like why is the union going out saying how many confirmed cases we have? Because we don't hide. There's this safety. You have an agreement with us. This has to be transparent. You have literally 24 to 48 hours to inform and then get the information out, do the testing and tracing, give that information to the staff, that they all know that there was a positive case, that test and tracing takes place. It's like they didn't know that this was going to happen.

Brian: In response to the concerns like those from the union leader over infections and tracing, Mayor de Blasio reaffirmed at his news conference yesterday, that schools will still open up as plan next Monday, and added that he would establish a so-called Situation Room. We usually hear that in conjunction with the Pentagon, things like that. This is public school opening in a pandemic Situation Room. The mayor called it a central command headquarters, staffed by the Department of Education, Test and Trace, and the Health Department.

Mayor de Blasio: A principal or school administrator can call, alert the Situation Room team to a situation in their school. That will immediately activate contact tracing and all the appropriate steps to make sure that anyone who does need to be isolated will be isolated quickly.

Brian: Mayor de Blasio also said yesterday on a separate issue that the city will add 2,000 more teachers for this school year, remember it starts next Monday, to help with a staffing shortage where they will all come from so quickly, and even whether that many will fill the need that will remain open questions. Here with me now to go over all of that, or at least as much of it as we can get to in one conversation because it's so enormous, our WNYC and Gothamist reporter Sophia Chang, and WNYC education reporter Jessica Gould. Hi, Sophia. Hi, Jess.

Jessica Gould: Hi, there.

Sophia Chang: Hi, Brian.

Brian: First, a bit of breaking news. The DOE announced yesterday that 42% of families have indicated that they will keep their children at home for remote-only learning. That's a change and an increase from the original number who signed up for remote-only back in August. 42% now, Sophia, what does that indicate?

Sophia: Well, Brian, it may indicate a growing reluctance to start the school year in blended learning. The model of the survey that was sent out to parents in the beginning of the summer asked if they were willing to opt in for the remote learning full-time, but then if they didn't answer the survey, then you were defaulted into the blended learning model. As we go closer and closer to the beginning of the school year, it's possible more parents are getting more and more reluctant to try out this experiment, so to speak.

Brian: Is it known, Sophia, for what neighborhoods or demographics these opt-outs are coming from because one of the big issues and certainly one of the things Mayor de Blasio always talks about is a reason for wanting in-person learning as an option, is inequality.

Sophia: Right. The data coming out of the Department of Education is actually showing that the larger numbers of families that are choosing not to participate in blended learning are actually families that are Asian, Black, and Hispanic. Some of the statistics are 54% of Asian public school parents are not doing blended learning, so they're doing full-time remote learning. Black parents have the second-highest opt-out rate with 37% of Black families choosing for full-time versus remote learning, and then 36% of Hispanic parents are also opting for full-time remote learning.

Brian: Is there anything in those numbers that indicates anything about certain types of families with certain needs, or what some inaccurate stereotypes of those families might be?

Sophia: I think this will depend on more information coming out of the city in terms of what neighborhoods are choosing. Right now, we're getting district level statistics of that. Obviously these districts can cover multiple neighborhoods, so we don't know for sure what communities are choosing remote learning in higher numbers just yet. This will require a little bit more information from the city.

Brian: All right. Jessica, you reported on the so-called walkouts or workouts yesterday and I guess the language there, that distinction between a walkout and a workout is important, at least legally, because teacher strikes or walkouts are illegal in New York State, but workout indicates that, "Hey, we're willing to work. We just want to do it remotely." These workouts took place from PS 139 and Ditmas Park, similar to the one at IS 230 in Jackson Heights on Friday. What were you hearing from teachers there and what was the scene?

Jessica: I mean, it's also that they don't feel comfortable walking in, so they say. I think you're right about the legal issue. What they're saying is that they don't feel safe in their buildings, and the reasons that we're hearing range. Some schools, there are concerns about their ventilation systems. PS 139, for example, they were concerned about what they felt was not adequate cleaning that took place over the course of last week when teachers returned, and also after there was a positive case on Friday, and they wanted guarantees that there had been a full disinfection.

We've heard the mayor and chancellor touting these newfangled electrostatic sprayers, which to me look a little bit like the backpacks they have in Ghostbusters, and you use them to spray disinfectant all over, but apparently, as of the end of last week that was still in a box at PS 139. They were concerned about their vents not being cleaned. They were concerned about the pacing of the test and trace.

When I got there at 7:30 in the morning yesterday, teachers were setting up folding chairs outside in the courtyard and sitting on the steps, and they had their laptops balanced on their knees, and some were doing their webinars on trauma or how to react to trauma in kids and how to do curriculum. It was interspersed with chanting, and talking to the press about their concerns at the school.

Brian: I don't know if you saw the op-ed in the New York Times today, and listeners if you saw it, by the actor and former gubernatorial candidate, Cynthia Nixon. She was comparing how they're getting the facilities ready on the TV show that she's working on currently, versus the school where her kid goes, New York City Public School. She wrote, "On the call related to my show, I heard about the many tours the industrial hygienist had taken of the set, and about the renovation of some of our workspaces to be COVID safe. Out of an abundance of caution even some spaces that look fairly healthy had been eliminated.

I also heard about how the crew and production staff would be divided into strict pods. They would be tested before they started work and then tested one to three times a week. Actors who need to remove their masks would be tested every day. Anyone coming to New York from out of state would need to quarantine for two weeks. Air purifiers have been purchased, filtration systems have been upgraded, and an entire department has been created solely to deal with safety protocols and testing. COVID upgraded vans and shuttles along with extra parking lots were available," and it went on.

Then she says, "The second call was a meeting of the parents association at my son's public school. I heard the teachers and administrators could choose to be tested for COVID before the school year began, and that people entering the school could decide whether they wanted their temperature taken. I heard about classroom pods limited to nine students, a restriction made irrelevant by the number of people moving freely from pod to pod." Jess, whether it should be the defining argument or not, I thought that was a very vivid portrayal of the difference between one professional environment and the one in the schools.

Jessica: Yes, I mean, I think in fairness to the DOE, some of those things that she's mentioning that are happening on her TV show are happening in the schools as well. The pods. They say they're closing rooms that don't have enough or good enough ventilation. They say they're closing buildings that don't have good enough ventilation. The United Federation of Teachers has done a walkthrough. They have their own engineers they say are doing that.

I would also mention that I can't say I'm familiar with Cynthia Nixon's newest show, but I would imagine that the budget is very different than the budgets that the school system here as a whole and individual schools are facing. That's a big concern that teachers are raising. It's not just what they consider poor planning, but it's that schools don't have and the school system doesn't have the capacity to make these improvements that they need.

Brian: I think her new show is called Virtual No-touch Dating in the City. No, I'm kidding. Listeners, teachers, students, parents in New York City's public school system, call in if you're a teacher, you've probably been back at school already, getting the classrooms ready. I know you're supposed to report as of the day after Labor Day last week. How do you feel about the state of your school? Help us report this story. How's your classroom? How's your building? Does it feel different than it did last year? Do you have a sense of how it's all going to work or not work? Do you feel confident in the ventilation system, the cleaning schedule, the seating arrangements, and anything else? 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280.

Parents, are you one of the families who more recently opted for remote-only learning, what changed your mind and how are you feeling about school starting next week in person? Tomorrow, in fact, for remote. What are you worried about? What are you maybe excited about? That's okay too, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, with WNYC and Gothamist's Jessica Gould and Sophia Chang.

Sophia, still thinking about the families, I mean, maybe they have little to complain about in the sense that, unlike the teachers, every family may just choose, in or out.

Sophia: Right, so the chancellor and the mayor left that choice up to individual families, but I think that the complaints have been that are families fully educated on what the implications of their choice means? Now, the families who opted for full-time remote learning, you're locked into that choice for a few months, because you cannot switch to in-person learning whereas the opposite is true. If you had elected for in-person, blended learning, you can switch to full-time remote at any time.

This makes sense given the staffing issues that go hand in hand with blended learning. I think that families who, a week before school starts, still have questions, maybe this is a moment where they start thinking, "Well, I'm not sure what's going to happen, so it's maybe easier just to do full-time remote learning right now and just see how the school year starts and how everything goes."

Brian: When can they up back in? Are there certain re-entry moments?

Sophia: Right, I believe it's once a quarter they can opt back in. Now, I think a lot of this will also change depending on how the first few weeks of school go. We'll see.

Brian: Jessica, one of the main teachers' concerns, as we mentioned, and as people have probably been hearing about in the news for a few days now, is the ventilation standards, like, an open window does not have ventilated classroom make. Let's hear a clip from one of the teachers on that. This is Donna Rivera, a third-grade teacher at PS 139.

Donna Rivera: What's happening and this is just something that is city-wide, is that our schools across the city do not have appropriate ventilation. Ventilation should be calculated by air changes per hour. Right now, what the Department of Education in the city of New York are saying is that as long as we have like a window open, then there's ventilation.

Brian: You both covered the ongoing scrutiny around school ventilation. Jessica, you want to tell us where that stands?

Jessica: Sure, and then I am going to hand it to Sophia because she had a conversation with one of the top experts on this last week. I have talked to ventilation experts who say that open windows with cross ventilation and a fan are actually as good as you can ask for if you have enough open windows but there are concerns about how--

Brian: But you just laid out a pretty high standard there. Multiple open windows with cross ventilation, which I guess, means windows facing different directions, and a fan.

Jessica: Right. I mean, I've also been told that, first of all, windows don't open in all schools. They're working on that, but they haven't been able to achieve it in all of them yet. Some of those buildings that don't have windows are the ones that are being closed and may be relocated for the start of the school year. There's also issues with windows only opening a little bit. That's what I was told at one of the schools yesterday and cross ventilation is a whole other thing. Plus, I've been told that teachers may have to buy their own fans.

That's part of it. Then I think that Sophia can tell you a little bit more about what she heard about air cycle flow changes and how that should be measured because that's something that we've been learning about through this process.

Brian: Sophia?

Sophia: Yes. When I spoke to Dr. Linsey Marr, she said that the ventilation inspection report that the city has been publishing for each school, she called it a good starting point, but that she would want to see more information specifically about the air exchange rates in each room which is when a full cycle of fresh air is in the room. There are differing opinions on what the adequate amount of airflow should be for a classroom, but she basically said that she just wants to see more information about what each classroom, each school facility built room would be able to show in terms of actual flow rates.

Brian: Listeners, I recommend you to Sophia's Gothamist article called City Releases Ventilation Reports For Each NYC School, But No Guide To Understanding Them. I guess that's a frustration, right? The teachers don't even know how to evaluate whether the classrooms are safe or so they feel?

Sophia: Yes, I mean, these reports were kind of vague. It was a checklist of each room in every school building. The checklist just had six categories and some of them were as basic as, windows yes or no. I don't know that there was enough detail in them for anyone to look at a single report and say, "Well, this is enough information for me."

Brian: Let's take a call.

Jessica: We've been seeing that there have been questions just about, does air cycle four times through a classroom in an hour? Teachers have been saying that's the standard that some Harvard scientist set and they want to see that level of detail about their schools, and they haven't been able to get that yet.

Brian: Elisa in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in. Hi.

Elisa: Hello?

Brian: Is that Elisa in Manhattan? Do I have that right?

Elisa: Yes, sorry. I apologize. A couple of weeks ago, Brian, you had the mayor on, and you would ask him the question about ongoing training during the summer for online resources for a teacher. I have a sibling that's a teacher, a long-time teacher in the public school system, and then another that has two children that are having a really tough time registering for the first time at his school.

Understanding that the city's school system's underresourced and underfunded, I'm perplexed as to why the mayor made the claim that he was addressing this stuff over the summer. It was a flat-out skirting of the question you asked him and he does not seem to have looked at any of this when we all knew it was coming. I'm a little disappointed that the press hasn't followed up on that more aggressively.

Brian: Because your sister who's a teacher feels that there has not been training over the summer and even in these last few weeks?

Elisa: Brian, there's been no training of teachers over the summer for how to transition to online learning. If it was done, it was done in a volunteer capacity. It was people that opted into enhancing their professional skills, but most of those teachers had family obligations over the summer.

Brian: Right. I'm so glad you brought this up, and Elisa, thank you for your call. Because I think Sophia and Jess, whichever of you has been really on the remote learning piece, there's so much public debate in the media over whether the schools should reopen for a blended, part in-person learning at all, that the quality of the remote learning piece does get left behind. I think she's right, so which of you ever been covering that?

Jessica: I'll take that one. Because I have the same concern and I've had it all this summer talking to teachers, who said this is an opportunity to improve our remote learning. Instead, all of the sort of intellectual energy and people power is going into how to make this hybrid puzzle work and how to make the facilities safe enough. I asked the DOE about this, I did a story about this a few weeks ago. I think we had a conversation about this, Brian, on-air a few weeks ago.

Brian: Yes.

Jessica: What the DOE said is that yes, there have been trainings, thousands of people have participated, but it is true, from my understanding, that it's been voluntary, I guess, partially because of teachers not having to work over the summer, but I think that it's been tough when all of the oxygen in the conversation has gone to these sort of physical plan questions, and testing and tracing, and safety things to elevate the remote learning options. I'm not sure that the teachers I've talked to have also felt that the opportunities, they haven't known about them, even though they're offered. They aren't also the most compelling of the opportunities that they would like.

I've heard that the trauma training has actually been pretty good, but that there hasn't been that same level of discussion around what makes good remote virtual learning. I think we're going to see problems from just the basic technology, how to log into Google Classroom, how to handle Zoom with 60 students, but also what makes good content online. That's a difficult thing to pin down, but it's something that I've been talking to teachers about, and there are teachers who have found some success. I wish that they had been called upon more broadly to share their expertise.

Brian: Let's take a phone call from a parent, Serena in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Serena.

Serena: Hi. I'm a mom of a high school student who goes to 140th Street, commutes there. I feel like a lot of the high school students, the stuff that they're saying about families, that are choosing to be remote, or not completely transparent, because the school, the way they schedule the classrooms, is really pushing us to be remote. Since all academic classes are remote, and you can only go into school on an afternoon, once a week, to meet with your guidance counselor, and he's a sophomore student, he doesn't need one, why would I send my kid to school for that? Because all his classes that are academic are halftime and only in the mornings, and they're going to be remote anyway. I don't think those stats are taking that into consideration.

Brian: Do you, at least as an individual, because you have those choices, feel well served?

Serena: No, because I agree with this Board of Ed and teachers that they're very concerned about teachers' health, but also I also agree, having seen my kid be on remote learning since March of this year that he does need some social interaction. Going in to meet his guidance counselor is the last thing he wants to do. He wants to see some of his classmates, maybe take a class in person, so I feel like it kind of doesn't serve any purpose. They should just choose to be completely remote, and to the last person's call, concentrate on how to be good remote teachers, versus I'm giving you a choice because it's not really a choice.

Brian: Serena, thank you so much. John, in Queens, you're on WNYC, a high school teacher. Hi, John.

John: Hi, Brian. Great show. Thanks. I just want to make a couple of points and one is what are we supposed to do come November, December with the windows all open? Are we have to wear our winter coats in the classroom? I mean, I think that's asking a bit too much. Secondly, I think once we tipped over the 50% mark for remote, we shouldn't demand teachers to come in just to teach remotely. That's exposing teachers to dangers. The teachers are nervous. That just makes a teaching compromise, so either way, we're compromised, either remote or in person.

Brian: You're saying when a school population, the student population goes over 50% choosing remote, then they should close to school for in-person altogether? Is that what you're doing for?

John: Yes, I think otherwise, you're exposing teachers and everyone else at staff involved to the dangers of catching the virus. I think that's a bit unfair. Once it tips over, why not just shut it down and have everyone safe?

Brian: Well, let me ask you two follow-up questions that maybe the Mayor would pose if he was here. One is why take that choice away from the remaining families? Two, is the fear less grounded in science than people might like to think? Because the Mayor has pointed out that these 55 coronavirus positive tests so far of teachers and staff coming back to school is out of, I forget the denominator here, but the total number that have been tested, which is in the tens of thousands range, and so the positivity rate is one-third of 1%. Only one-third of 1% of all those getting tested are testing positive. Therefore, he's arguing that the risk is being overblown or overperceived.

John: I understand, and it's difficult to say what is the exact answer. I understand, it is better to have students in school, I am in favor of students coming to school. I just feel, how much further are we going to go? Are we going to 80%, 90% remote, and we're still going to have teachers having to come in just to teach remote when they can do it just as easily at home? I'm sorry, what was the other question?

Brian: Yes. Well, I think you answered both questions with that, so John, I'm going to leave it there and I really thank you for your input. Sophia Chang, what about those issues that were raised during that call?

Sophia: I think that, it sounds like there's just so many unknowns. Truly, the teachers continued to share their frustrations with us, that they just don't know that they have any confidence in how safe classrooms will be, and whether the DOE can actually hold up their end of all the agreements they've hammered out with the different unions about safety and personal protective equipment. We're really coming down to the wire and there's still a lot of concern and frustration coming out of the educators who are contacting us, so I think what John is saying is very much of a piece of that.

Brian: Sophia, what about the PPEs because I know another big concern of the UFT President, Michael Mulgrew on Friday, was what he characterized as a disorganized approach to PPE. He said, "We got PPE delivered, but we don't know where it is." What's the latest that you know with that?

Sophia: Right, so this week, we definitely heard from a lot of schools that said that they had some issues, in particular if they were a school site that isn't completely controlled by the Department of Education. Like the schools that are located on state-owned property or community-based organizations that run pre-K programs, for example. There's been a coordination that has to happen with those entities that haven't been running very smoothly. Now, we're hearing that it's getting better, it's getting fixed as the plan is tinkered with, but we're still hearing some concern, so this is a logistical supply chain issue as well as just shared distribution.

Brian: Craig in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Craig.

Craig: Hey, good morning, Brian. I was telling your caller that my niece is an essential worker, she works for the NYPD. In March, when schools got shut down, they made school sites available for workers like herself, to take their kids to school. They cleaned out their jail then, I'm assuming, but it wasn't all of these big things that teachers are making now about parts per million with the air quality. My brother-in-law works as a correction officers on Rikers Island. Trying to compare the air quality in schools, as a person that went to the Board of Ed my whole life, with these big windows that you could open from the top and the bottom. Comparing that to then some dungeon when there's actually city workers that work in dungeons. You had that guy on earlier, some teachers say, "Oh we we don't want to come in. We just want to work remote." We have to look to see that certain teachers have an agenda. They live wherever they live. They don't want to commute in, they want to work from home but this is for the kids. This is not for the teachers first.

I own a house. I pay property tax. I pay income tax. My kid is in private school because I don't even like the quality of public school. Overall, I live in this world where these kids, if they don't get educated properly they're going to be behind. They're going to grow up citizens with a step back in life. That's going to create a whole bunch of strife 10 years from now when these kids are set to graduate high school, and that is my concern as a citizen in this city.=

Brian: Craig thank you so much for calling us today and wow, Jess. He's really putting it on the line there about where is the line of how much safety, and for home, teachers who may or may not live in the city and just how much they need to feel, I think entitled, he's saying to protect themselves when other people have to go to work at Rikers Island and things like that, which are much worse. I will say that between the time that he went to school, and I went to school in the city with the old buildings, with the big open windows, not all the buildings are like that anymore. I don't know. He lays out a parent's argument that some other parents also have expressed on this show.

Jessica: I think it's really important to hear and I'm glad that we have that perspective lifted up because we've been hearing so much from organized teachers who are vocally concerned about their own safety. Many of whom also say, all of whom really I've talked to, say they would prefer to be in the class back with students but they're concerned about their own safety, the safety of their students and their families. There is also the tremendous importance of having kids educated and socialized. It's a wrenching situation that we have to evaluate these two things against each other. That's what's made this time so hard.

Brian: The example that he brought up of the rec centers as they were known in the spring, when the schools first shut down but they did keep some facilities open for kids of essential workers who had no other daycare options. Jessica, do you know if there's science from those that they turned out to be coronavirus transmission centers or if they turned out to be safe, and the caller is right that we're looking too closely at every part per million now, when we already have experience from the spring that these are basically okay?

Jessica: I've read reporting about this, and our colleague at NPR, Anya Kamenetz, did a story about this as well. My understanding is that these rec centers had very few cases, if any. They had to close some, I heard that Ys, like in Maryland had to close sometimes, because of potential cases but there wasn't an outbreak, and there certainly wasn't an outbreak in the city. I don't have the specific numbers on it but a lot of people are pointing to these rec centers as really positive examples. The problem is that it's such a smaller scale, there's so much more space.

Now, we're opening up school buildings with cohorts of kids who move around and teachers who move around. I think it's likely to be a very different scenario though the DOE says they're using the lessons they learned from the rec centers to make this transition safe.

Brian: Sophia, as we wrap this up, what happens next? Here we are on Tuesday before the Monday that in-person learning is supposed to start and-- you're closer to it than I am. I can't totally figure out what's going on, but there's a little corner of my brain that says the teachers are just in full revolt. They're just not going to have it when it comes to Monday. They're not going to go, but what do you see between now and then?

Sophia: That is a million-dollar question. I think the reality is that cases were always going to show up in school communities just based on what we know of the transmission rates. The issue really is how the city and the Department of Education is going to respond to these cases showing up. This week they've already had dozens test results coming in from teachers and other staff members coming back.

If these outbreaks can be contained, and everyone's safety and health maintained on all levels, from students to the staff to the teacher and administrator, doing all this while also minimally distorting the school year. Also, if people have confidence in these plans, and we're talking about millions of New Yorkers who are going to be affected by what happens in the next few months of the school year, so we'll see.

Brian: Of course then what happens is building by building, and those are going to be a million other stories. I have a friend connected to a public school in Huntington where they have opened already, and already, there was a case or multiple cases and they've shut it down for two weeks and all the families are having to figure out what to do for the next two weeks. I know there's some of this going on in Connecticut as well, let's see. As of yesterday, at least a dozen Connecticut schools have closed since the start of school which was in late August.

A lot of school-by school detail to come, and listeners, go to gothamist.com where Sophia Chang is on it and on it and on it. Also Jessica Gould, though you know her from WNYC radio reporting also gets print articles on Gothamist on this, so we are covering this with our team Jessica Gould and Sophia Chang. We will stay on it on this show as well. Sophia and Jessica, thank you so much for coming on today.

Jessica: Thank you.

 

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