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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. In-person classes are beginning today for New York City elementary school kids. The restart had already been delayed twice because of staffing issues and worries over safety. Over the weekend, the union representing the city's principals, a group that rarely gets into such political fights, said it lost confidence in Mayor de Blasio's reopening plan so much so that the principal's union is now urging the state to take over the city schools for the remainder of the pandemic.

Speaking of the pandemic, my next guest represents one of the areas that is now seeing a spike in our area, and he is chair of the city council's education committee. We'll talk about both of these things now with Mark Treyger, city council member representing parts of Southern Brooklyn, and again, he is chair of the council's education committee. Council Member, welcome to WNYC today. Thanks for coming on.

Mark Treyger: Great to be with you, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian: What do you make first of the principals union vote of no confidence and request of the state to take over the city schools?

Mark: I have been hearing from school leaders, educators, parents throughout this entire period, and it is no surprise to me that a number of school leaders have lost confidence because, Brian, there's a difference between headlines and the fine print. Regardless of what the mayor wants to project on each morning at his press conferences, to this date, we are still experiencing severe teacher shortages in our schools.

We still have thousands of kids without devices and internet service. I believe that principals are just responding to the facts on the ground. The one thing I'll note is that, in their call for the state education department to take over the city schools, it is not clear to me how much power NYSED has now because when the state legislature voted on their budget--

Brian: Just to be clear, NYSED is the New York State Education Department as opposed to the city. Go ahead.

Mark: Correct. Yes, Brian. The state education department would normally have a lot of power over school districts, but when the state voted on their budget earlier this year, they voted to give the governor extraordinary power including over NYSED. It's not even clear to me how much power NYSED has left during these temporary emergency measures. Having said that, I stand in solidarity with educators and school leaders that the mayor's proposal is still very inadequate. It also fails the equity test, Brian, for kids and families who need more in-person services than what they're getting right now.

Brian: I think you're saying Governor Cuomo could wave his magic wand and take over the New York City public schools. Is that what you're saying, and do you want him to do that?

Mark: I have appealed to the governor's office because the mayor's plan is inadequate, but I want to say this, Brian, it's not enough to just simply ask the governor to wave a magic wand, the governor has to also allow the city to have emergency borrowing authority so we could operationalize plans. That's what I've been calling for from the beginning. The city is financially broke. That's the worst kept secret at city hall.

I'm also a member of the city council's budget negotiation team. I see the same numbers which the mayor's office sees as well. We need borrowing authority immediately. We need to begin to operationalize plans in a responsible, meaningful way. Yes, the governor has the power to intervene, but more than just simply waving a finger at the mayor, I think the State of New York needs to help the city get through this very difficult financial time.

Brian: I want to get back to something you said a minute ago, about there still not being enough teachers to really open the schools, and yet, here we are on day one of reopening, at least, through elementary school and the upper grades are supposed to start on Thursday. On Friday of last week, the mayor, as he does every Friday, was on the show taking questions from me and from listeners. He wouldn't release an exact number of teachers, that they were still short as a Friday, or how many holes they still needed to feel in order to get to reopening today. Here's the end of that exchange. You're saying there's zero chance that staffing would be a cause for further delay.

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, the problem-- I don't do hypotheticals because we're dealing with the healthcare dynamics and everything else. I'm not going to do that. Honestly, I don't think that's productive.

Brian: I'm just saying, there's zero chance that staffing--

Mayor de Blasio: I'm just telling you what I-- The truth is that we are getting the people we need in place, period.

Brian: The mayor didn't want to say there was a zero chance that he would have to delay the opening of school again because of staffing shortages, but he did say we are getting the people in place who we need, period. Do we have the people in place today that they need for the elementary school grades because the schools are open?

Mark: Brian, the answer is no. Many schools still do not have the staff, which they need. I want to be even more blunt. Particularly, in the high school field, many students will not be receiving in-person instruction. What they'll be receiving come Thursday is, what I call, supervised remote instruction, which means that if the high school has a couple of chemistry teachers and they're both out on medical accommodations, they don't have this infinite pool of substitutes of chemistry teachers in the City of New York. You're most likely going to have a teacher from a different licensed area supervising students who have laptops or have iPads in the class while their teacher works from home.

That is because in high school, Brian, you have a licensing dynamic that you don't really have an elementary school. In high school, you need to have a licensed teacher to teach that specific content course. I was a licensed history-- I am still a licensed history teacher. You can't put me into a chemistry class to teach chemistry. In elementary school, you need a general license, where they can move teachers around and move subs around.

The high school dynamic is far more complex and complicated because of state regulations, and that is why I am telling you that many high school kids will not be getting in-person instruction come this Thursday. They will be getting supervised remote instruction, if they have technology, Brian. This morning, I spoke to a high school principal of a small high school in New York City, she is still short 150 devices plus internet for her students. They're not even ready for remote instruction either.

Brian: To be clear, when you say supervised remote instruction, I'm trying to figure out exactly what that means and maybe some parents listening too are as well. Do you mean in that chemistry hypothetical that you just gave, that there might be some high school students who have chosen to go back in person, who will then be getting their chemistry class from a chemistry teacher, who is themselves at home?

Mark: Correct. In many cases, you're going to see students not getting in-person instruction from their teacher. Their teacher will be working from home using a laptop or technology device to connect with them remotely, while a teacher from a different department or a substitute teacher will be physically in the class just supervising them watching them but not teaching. Correct.

Brian: Okay, but we're in a pandemic and a lot of teachers are older or have other underlying conditions that led them to get these exemptions, what would you have them do? Maybe that's the best solution and just the best that they can do.

Mark: I don't think this is the best solution, Brian. I have laid forward a different vision, a different proposal going back to July. I waited for the state health department, education department to release their reopening guidance before I shared my proposal. I believe that-- As you mentioned, we're still in a pandemic, we're too large of a school system to come back all at once at the same time.

500,000 students of the 1.1 million go to elementary school, which today, we're seeing the return of elementary school. What I believe, which I think passes the equity test for kids who need more in-person services and for working parents we're facing impossible childcare situations right now, is that we should give-- First of all, we need the state to give us money to operationalize all the safety plans.

The IBO confirmed my concern that the guidance placed more cost on the city. It's about $33 million a week, an estimate, that the IBO released in terms of safety guidance. I believe that we should allow elementary schools children and all children with IEPs, multilingual learners, kids in temporary housing, the option of five days a week in-person services with the option to opt-out, while keeping high school remote. I believe that this is an approach that, actually, will provide more help and services for kids who really need it. The childcare and the development needs of a four or five-year-old are far greater and more intense than of a 17-year-old.

Now, again, high school kids certainly need more help and support and services, and I think that we could work on that through libraries, cultural institutions to provide enrichment settings for them. As far as in-person school, even with this hybrid blended learning model, Brian, one day a week for many kids, it's not working. It fails the equity test also for working parents.

Again, you're only four years old once in your life. You don't get this time back. If kids are not reading at second-grade level, it's very hard to catch up later. I think that this blended learning actually puts the additional staff strain on schools because you need really three groups of teachers. You need a teacher for cohort A on Monday and another teacher for cohort B on Tuesday, and you need a group of remote teachers. That's what's exacerbating the staffing shortage experienced by schools right now, Brian.

Brian: We're going to take a short break, and then, when we come back, we're going to talk to Councilman Treyger about the related issue of the COVID spike in parts of his district, in South Brooklyn. Of course, that's an issue in and of itself, and we'll get into that. It's also an issue with respect to what to do about the public schools in those neighborhoods that have a greater than 3% test positivity rate, which is supposed to be the standard.

Listeners, we can take a few phone calls as well. First of all, I wonder if any parents or teachers or principals are out there and want to give us an early report on day one for elementary school today. Do you have any early notion? I realize it's just the morning of the first day, but do you have any early notion of how it's going, parents for your kids or maybe some teachers on prep periods are listening right now? Mark Treyger just got a voicemail.

646-435-7280 is our phone number. Any first-day reports? Parents, teachers, principals, anyone that we can learn from and pass along to the city council education chair, who's our guest, that he could then use to help make sure things go better tomorrow? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. We'll continue on that and the covert spike right after this.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC, with City Council Member Mark Treyger, from parts of South Brooklyn doing double duty here. One in his role as chair of the Education Committee, with today being the first day of in-person schools for elementary schools in New York City, and also, his district being one of those that has a covert spike going on right now, parts of South Brooklyn there.

Let me tie those two together for you because the mayor has said schools will automatically close if 3% of COVID tests, citywide, come back positive. There is a higher than 3% positivity rate now at the neighborhood level in parts of your district Gravesend and Bensonhurst, which were singled out by Governor Cuomo yesterday as COVID hotspots, with a warning to get it together. Here's a little bit of the governor on the 10 hotspots zip codes.

Governor Cuomo: The infection rate in the top 10 zip codes is about 15%. Those top 10 zip codes represent 2.9% of the state's population and 25% of the cases. 2.9% of the population, 25% of the cases positive cases.

Brian: Councilman, A, what's going on in your district? B, should the public schools in your district close?

Mark: I represent parts of the areas that are mentioned, Brian. I represent Bensonhurst, Gravesend, parts of Coney Island, and Sea Gate. I want to just first underscore something that even relates to the overall school system that applies to the response to COVID-19 and the pandemic. Trust remained shattered, Brian. It remained shattered in the school system, and it remained shattered in our communities. That goes for local state and federal level. Obviously, the federal level, that goes without saying.

Remember, this is a city that was very slow to shut things down at the start of the pandemic and is trying to ramp things up now, and a lot of folks holding responsibility at the local state and federal government. I want to tell you, Brian, that I was in touch recently with a yeshiva leader in Gravesend, in my district. They're closed for 14 days. They're cooperating with the health department. I want to share with you, Brian, and your listeners that they only really heard from the city leadership only until after the confirmed cases. When I asked them about whether or not the city asked for their reopening plans and they asked for other types of information or offering support, there was radio silence.

What worries me, Brian, is that we were reactionary. We're not proactive, and that's the same situation in the broader school system as well. You need to solidify trust, especially in a crisis. You need to make sure that you're communicating with folks, not just after the fact but before things and crisis starts. Now, I could tell you that they have ramped up communication. They have ramped up messaging. I've seen-- I've been on email chains, I've been on calls, but I believe that the response was really too late, and now, they're ramping up communication efforts.

Brian, when you're in a crisis, you need to communicate with folks, not just after things happen but throughout this entire time. I think that what's happening here is that you already have communities that are not very trustful of government for a variety of reasons, and that will lead to bad decisions and that will lead to bad outcomes. Now, what I could tell you is that I've been in touch with the city administration.

I've been in touch with local community leaders and some yeshiva leaders and school leaders, they are hearing more from city agencies. They're hearing more from authorities. They're going to be ramping up what's called the rapid testing. They're going to try to get more information out there in culturally responsive ways, but it's sad that, again, it happened after the fact and not before. They had access to these numbers before they were rising to a level of 17% positivity rate in one day. We have to double down in efforts to communicate, build trust, and make sure people are complying with the very important safety guidance.

Brian: How can you-- Let me linger on that for a second, with respect to how the city can do that, and whether you think this is what's going on in those parts of Brooklyn is an artifact of coronavirus being an item in the culture wars. The very Orthodox communities, in question, and we know which communities these spikes are taking place in, and they are Orthodox communities.

I guess we just have to say that directly that, in Rockland, it's Monsey and Kiryas Joel, it's Borough Park in Brooklyn, parts of Gravesend and Bensonhurst that are relevant, it's Borough Park. They're generally seen as politically conservative and Republican, not to generalize too much, but assuming that's accurate, in general, do you think they're believing coronavirus disinformation, including from the president, that masks don't matter very much and that things can reopen safely indoors more than they really can?

Mark: There's no question that the federal government's, President Trump is leading to enormous amounts of distrust and chaos in communities in New York City, in Orthodox, and other communities in New York, not just the Orthodox but other folks who are questioning the science, questioning leaders like Dr. Fauci, who is a Brooklynite, who I admire very much more so than ever. There's no question that plays a role, but that tells you, Brian, that as local leadership, we need to double down to build trust and to build those relationships.

We already know the behavior of this president. I think that that's why it puts more pressure on state and local leaders to solidify and build that trust. That trust is broken. Look, to me, there's no excuse, folks need to wear masks when they're outside, folks need to social distance, folks need to wash their hands frequently. They need to stay home if they're not feeling well, call a doctor. We're going to keep repeating that and keep reinforcing that.

I do believe that communication goes a long way, building confidence goes a long way, staying in touch with credible messengers in the community. I mean, the fact that I spoke to yeshiva leader and they didn't hear anything from city hall until after the crisis. They didn't even hear about whether or not they wanted to offer support for the reopening plan. All communication was happening with the State of New York, not the City of New York. I made sure I alerted the city that you cannot wait until after cases are confirmed to communicate with schools. They have a responsibility to make sure that all school communities are safe and supported, Brian, public or non-public.

This is an issue that we need all hands on deck approach, but I can't underscore the importance of building trust and continuing and building these relationships. Regardless of people's political views, we're in a public health crisis. Southern Brooklyn has been hard-hit. We're seeing these upticks again. We have to double down on building trust and compliance with very important safety rules.

Brian: I saw an article on one of the news sites this weekend about three people from Orthodox communities in Brooklyn having died recently of coronavirus. I don't know what the real numbers are, or how much further that goes, or how many hospitalizations there have been. Do you think that's going to be a wake-up call for the community?

Mark: I spoke with, recently, in Maimonides Hospital, and they obviously have a different version of events and what's happening. They are seeing an uptick in some of the cases as far as admissions. These are, no question, warning signs. We are still in a pandemic that has never stopped. Brian, I think to underscore this point, it shouldn't take a day of seeing numbers rising to 17% for the government to formulate a response. We need a sustained response. Flattening the curve is one thing, remaining flat is what's important until there's a vaccine and until we can finally defeat this pandemic once and for all.

I believe that folks got very overconfident over the summer. There was a lot of-- Folks were talking about how they flattened, beat the curve, crush the curve. We're in a pandemic. This virus does not go by any calendar, does not go by the political calendar. It doesn't care if you're a Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative. It's still out there. You need leadership at the local level, state level to continue with a consistent effort to get the word out, to ensure compliance, and to continuously build trust. I can't underscore, Brian, the need to continuously build trust.

Brian: Let me get a few phone calls in here before we run out of time. Starting with Nancy in Manhattan, who I think has a report on public school opening day one, is that right? Nancy, you have a kid in the lower grades? Hi.

Nancy: Oh, I think you're talking to me, but no, I don't. I have a child in high school. What I wanted to talk about was the frustration that I feel every time I hear about kids not having enough devices because students like my son, he has his own laptop, he could bring that into school and use it, but the schools don't allow the students to know the WiFi password. Therefore, when he goes into one of those schools-- He's going to a school where it's all remote, whether you're in-person or at home.

He's going to go into school just because he's going to be a first-year in high school, so some social aspects because he didn't know any kids that are going to the school, but they won't allow him to bring in his own laptop. He has to use a school device because they won't give out the WiFi password. It's so frustrating to me to hear that when I know there are so many kids who don't have devices yet.

Brian: Nancy, thank you very much. Iman in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hello, Iman.

Iman: Hi. It's Iman. I wanted to ask Mr. Treyger a question. I'm one of his constituents. I live in Sea Gate. Tonight, I'd like to ask him, is he attending the executive committee meeting tonight?

Mark: Forgive me, there's a number of meetings tonight. Which meeting are you referring to?

Iman: The one where they're voting on the proposal that would take away the registered Democrats who signed up to the county committee members. There's going to be a vote tonight on whether we should have a Zoom meeting to include all of these registered Democrats as county committee members or whether to take those thousands of Democrats who are registered and give their vote to district leaders instead. I'd like to know how you were going to be voting on this proposal tonight.

Mark: This is regards to a Brooklyn Democratic meeting tonight, with I believe district leaders and a number of folks, Brian. Look, I need to get a lot more information than I have about a number of these proposals that are being discussed there tonight. I need a lot more information before I make a decision on that.

Brian: All right. I'm not aware of the issue, but you're saying you haven't taken a position on the issue that she's asking about.

Mark: That's correct because-- Yes.

Brian: One more. Sheila in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Council Member Treyger. Hi, Sheila.

Sheila: Hi. I just wanted to say to Councilman, I understand what you're saying about trying to build community trust and trust with communities. I think people-- Certainly, that has to be done over and over, but I think there comes with time when individuals in the community also need to start taking some personal civic responsibility and understand that this is really important.

This weekend, I had to drive through Midwood, Orthodox community, and Brian, I actually feel like I did one of your thoroughly unscientific surveys because I started realizing all the people that were out walking around without masks. Actually, I started counting them on my destination to and from. The number I came up with was one in four people wear masks. The rest of the people, and there are a lot of people outside walking around on a Sunday, and there were one in four. That's absolutely ridiculous at this point. They can't say they don't know because they've been reached out to, and people, this is all over the media and everything. People have to put their personal beliefs aside at this moment and try to do the correct civic thing.

Brian: For public health. Sheila, thank you very much. We have 30 seconds left. Council Member, respond to Sheila and maybe talk to your constituents.

Mark: Short note, Sheila, I appreciate you mentioned the word media. I want to just say, Brian, I wish all of my constituents would listen to The Brian Lehrer Show. Some folks in my district have different sources of media. I am from the Russian-speaking community, and I am a proud Democrat, but there are a number of folks in my community, for example, the Russian community, that listen to certain news channels that dispute the science.

This is a battle for the truth. I know it sounds simple, "Listen to the media. Follow the instructions," but we're up against a misinformation campaign. We're up against folks who have different media sources. I wish we all listen to Brian Lehrer. Brian's a gem in New York and in our Tri-State region. Folks listen to different things, and they're hearing different things that, "The virus is over. This is a hoax." That's why we need credible messengers on the ground at the local level to continue to speak up and speak the truth and protect public health. I'm going to do all that I can from my end, but I need help from the mayor and the governor and others to do their part as well.

Brian: Mark Treyger, City Council Member, representing parts of Southern Brooklyn and the chair of the council's Education Committee. Thank you so much.

Mark: Thank you, Brian. Thank you.

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