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Brigid Bergin: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC and Brigid Bergin from the WNYC and Gothamist Newsroom filling in for Brian Lehrer who is off today. He'll be back tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm broadcasting from my home in New York City. Coming up on the show today, we'll hear your stories of giving birth during 2020 when the usual isolation of being stuck at home with a newborn was compounded by the pandemic.

Plus in our series on the business side of the prison industry, we'll look at who profits from law enforcement's use of fingerprints, facial recognition, and other surveillance technology measures. We'll hear from two of the women accusing Governor Cuomo of sexual misconduct in their own words, but to start, it was one year ago today, Mayor de Blasio announced the closure of New York City's public schools, disrupting the lives of its million-plus students, their parents and their educators, with all the ripples out from there.

Mayor de Blasio: This is a decision that I have taken with no joy whatsoever with a lot of pain, honestly, because it's something I could not in a million years ever imagine having to do, but we are dealing with a challenge and a crisis that we have never seen in our lifetimes and has only just begun. I regret to have to announce that as of tomorrow, our public schools will be closed.

Brigid: Let's take this opportunity to see how it's going. Parents and students, are you getting a handle on pandemic education? What's working? What are you most looking forward to, to changing when schools open? Call us at 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. That number is 646-435-7280. We'll be talking more about this as the week goes by, but today, let's start here, reflect on this pandemic year in schools through your own child's education.

That's 646-435-7280. I'm joined by this with my colleague, Jessica Gould, who reports on New York City schools for WNYC and Gothamist. We have a one-year in-sound compilation for you at the end of this conversation, you'll want to stay tuned for that, but first, hello, Jessica.

Jessica Gould: Hey, Brigid. How are you?

Brigid: I'm great. Thank you so much for joining us. Jessica, take us back one year ago, the Mayor was very reluctant to close schools. He knew there weren't a lot of good options for a lot of parents, what was going into that decision?

Jessica: Yes, and then you can hear in that tape, he really agonized over it and he held off. The days leading up to the decision were pretty chaotic. That Friday, there were two schools closed in the Bronx, and I went to visit them, and they were in one building.

There was just this sense of dread in the neighborhood. I was talking to people and there was buzz around it. I remember talking to a student calling him at home. He was home alone, and he was 12. I thought, “Oh, my God, this is what this could be. There's so many kids whose parents need to work, and how are they going to do this at home?” I think that's a lot of what the Mayor was worried about. I think also, the city's schools allow for the functioning of the city as a whole. You close down the schools, you basically have to shut down the city.

I think that's part of why he didn't want to do it, and then on that Sunday, there was the back-and-forth. I think that Governor Cuomo got in right before he did to say that the schools were closed, which set the stage for them tangling, and trying to get ahead of each other and big decisions that were made for the schools, which was just more anxiety-producing for families.

Brigid: Sure. This happened right before a holiday I remember, and that gave schools only about a week to switch over to remote instruction, that really ended up lasting through the school year, which in of itself was a Herculean task done pretty much without preparation. Instead of talking about what went wrong with remote education, what has actually worked?

Jessica: Well, one thing is that since schools are such a foundational part of the communities they're in, in some ways, they were able to stay that way certainly by distributing meals. To date, 90 million meals have been distributed at schools. That's been a huge undertaking to keep families fed since they rely on that. Ultimately, half-a-million internet-enabled devices, iPads and other devices have been distributed to kids. It took a while, and that could go in the less rosy discussion, but it did come out. They have gone into people's hands, they've been wiring homeless shelters to get kids in shelters online.

I would probably flag two other things. One is the regional enrichment centers, the learning centers for kids of essential workers, which-- It took a while for them to be utilized by people, but once they were, they were popular, and they seem to have safety precautions that worked, and I think became a basis for some of the plans put in place for the reopening of schools broadly. The other thing, I would say is the heroic work by teachers who changed on a dime and had to figure out how to use all of these different platforms to teach, and how to get kids interested.

I remember I did a bunch of stories in the spring about ways they were going the extra mile. In this case, literally, I did a story about a teacher who biked around delivering books to his kids, or they would drive by, kids would be hanging out and they would wave. One teacher I profiled, he started showing up online in his remote classes as his wrestling alter ego to get the kids to come to his remote math class because they liked it.

Brigid: Is remote instruction still the way most kids are connecting with schools, even though some are in hybrid instruction for some grades?

Jessica: Yes. Most families have opted for all-remote, or they did at least last fall when they had the last chance to opt-in. That's another issue that's looming right now, is parents want another chance to opt-in now that vaccines are being distributed and cases are going down. It's about 70%, who are all-remote, and then kids who are in hybrid have been remote a lot of the time. Either because they aren't going to school all the days of the week, or because their schools shut down often because of positive cases.

Brigid: I want to go to one of our callers. Janine, welcome to WNYC.

Janine: Hi, thanks so much for taking my comment and call. Love WNYC. My comment is, it's really difficult for teachers to make connections with the students and vice versa, obviously, because, we can't obviously make the students turn on their cameras, which inhibits connection.

I work with 11th graders, and one of the things that I stress is 11th grade, you want to get teacher recommendations for college, and right now, there's no physical way of seeing and connecting with your teacher. The best way is to turn on your camera, and it's difficult. It's difficult for them for different reasons. They're very independent. The older learners and that probably has something to do with it, but yes it's a challenging situation to try to really connect when cameras are off. Obviously, that is something that we want.

Brigid: Have you found any strategies that are particularly effective to try to connect with students? Even those folks who are unwilling to turn on their cameras?

Janine: Well, in my situation, I'm able to have one-on-one meetings. In those situations, I can connect with the students. I have a class, but then I also have individual one-on-one. From my situation, it's a little different from the average teacher who, really doesn't have that opportunity to have so many separate appointments. In a general sense, it's a problem. I do find in the one-on-ones, there's also the camera turning off, but yes. If I have my camera on, and smiling and saying hello, the students do tend to come on at that point. Whether they're not camera-ready, their background is not camera-ready, it's really tough to say why things are the way they are, but yes.

Brigid: Janine, thank you so much for calling in for sharing your story. Listeners, we want to invite you to be part of this conversation about this year in pandemic education for you, either as a parent, as an educator, students, if you're listening, call us 646-435-7280 or tweet @BrianLehrer. Again, the number 646-435-7280. We're marking this moment where last year Mayor de Blasio had to shut down schools because of the COVID-19 pandemic, how have you adapted? How have you overcome challenges? We want to hear from you on all of these issues. We're going to take another caller, Julia in Harlem. Julia, welcome to WNYC.

Julia: Hi, thanks so much for taking my call. I have a four-year-old and a one-year-old. Last year she had a few months of 3-K before everything was shut down. It was really, really hard at first to wrap my head around it because I had a very young baby and a three-year-old. I feel as though I truly lacked out in the teachers that have done the remote learning because we opted to do remote pre-K this year. Last year, the teacher was wonderful just jumping right into making videos for the kids and doing all the songs that they did in class.

This year, having multiple times a day on screen, I feel very lucky that I am in a position with my work that I am able to focus on her learning. I do feel as though there's a lot of screentime happening, but I'm choosing not to worry about that. I figure that maybe it's a benefit, maybe we don't even realize that it's going to be a benefit. Ultimately, I feel recently I've been noticing that my one-year-old, my baby now turned one year old is getting an education. She's getting a pre-K education. She knows all of her pre-K songs, she's singing along, she draws in a way that she looks like she's ready to write numbers and letters. [crosstalk]

Brigid: Maybe there is an added-

Julia: [crosstalk] library and being with other kids. Yes it feels [unintelligible 00:12:29]

Brigid: Benefit.

Julia: [unintelligible 00:12:30] an added benefit.

Brigid: Yes, thank you so much for sharing your story. Congratulations on having a one-year-old with those skills. Good luck as you continue to work through these upcoming weeks and months till schools go back to a new semblance of normal. I want to go back to you, Jessica. For a moment talk about that decision of how and when to reopen schools, which was really almost as fraught as the one to close them. What roles did some of the major stakeholders play and how and when it happened, you alluded a bit already to the tension between the city and the state.

Jessica: Yes, Mayor de Blasio and Chancellor Carranza announced their intention to reopen schools in this hybrid way, in early July, which was early in the summer to announce it, though. Parents have been frustrated that there wasn't more information about how that was going to work before and then through the summer. As I'm sure you remember, the reopening was actually delayed twice because schools weren't ready. There was this rush to improve ventilation, the union argued for and won more testing in schools on-site, and also fought back and I think caused the delay or called for the delay because of staffing shortages in hybrid learning.

There was a lot of frustration on the ground from teachers and principals over the summer where they felt like the administration didn't understand how things work on the ground well enough, and they weren't getting enough input from teachers and principals about how to do this. With hybrid learning, they basically had to have two sets of teachers, that was compounded by the guideline, I believe from the union, that teachers couldn't live stream. Some schools don't have the infrastructure for that, but that was prohibited. There was this staffing crunch that they were hiring up substitutes for right through the beginning of the school year. It was a chaotic summer in that way.

Brigid: Then, Jessica, you, and our colleague Cindy Rodriguez reported just this morning about kids who have seemingly dropped out of the system altogether. How many kids aren't connecting at all right now?

Jessica: Yes. Our analysis with the city's Independent Budget Office found that city schools, about half of them have attendance, a median in attendance under 90%, which is what many educators say is a marker for it being a concerning lack of attendance, and then schools in COVID hit neighborhoods. This analysis is from November through January of this past year, so this is continuing into this year. COVID hard-hit neighborhoods, programs for students in special education, district 75 programs, and transfer schools all have significantly lower attendance than they did last year and than the other schools.

Brigid: You're listening to the Brian Lehrer Show, on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergin senior political correspondent filling in for Brian today. The one-year anniversary of the announcement that due to the Coronavirus, New York City public schools were shutting down for in classroom instruction. I'll be back with reporter Jessica Gould to talk about hybrid instruction and to take your calls. Right after this.

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Brigid: This is Bridget Bergen in for Brian Lehrer today. We're observing the one-year anniversary of the mayor's decision to shut down New York City schools to in-person instruction because of COVID-19. I'm here with my colleague, education reporter Jessica Gould. Jessica, what about the in-classroom instruction that has been starting and stopping since the fall? It's about to be expanded to high school students soon, how has that worked, and how much time is actually spent in the classroom?

Jessica: Sure. The people who are doing in-person school like it better for the most part. There are exceptions to this, but the students seem more enthusiastic about coming to class when they're in person, they're more consistent with it. I think they feel like they're learning more. When I visited these classrooms, their desks, six feet apart, or close to it, the windows are open. It's been cold at certain points. Kids are wearing masks, except for when they have lunch. There are very few of them in the classrooms because of social distancing. That's what it looks like.

Then, in terms of how much that's been able to actually be the case for students, in some schools, it hasn't been very much because of COVID positivity, cases popping up, schools closing for a day, classes closing, and then schools closing for, two weeks, and then two weeks upon two weeks because of another case. That's been extremely frustrating and difficult for parents, and I think some teachers too. This was a safety measure laid out in the summer that the mayor now says he's reconsidering, but he's been saying he's reconsidering it for a few weeks now. We haven't heard the update on that.

Brigid: We're going to go to the phones again. Let's speak with Oussama in the Bronx. Oussama, welcome to WNYC.

Oussama: Hi, thanks for having me.

Brigid: Tell us, you are a student, is that right?

Oussama: Yes. I have, I'm actually in grad school right now. We had to just like everyone else make the shift to online learning. Initially, I was quick to criticize the professors and everything because we were a little bit behind and just struggling overall to make ends meet and to be on the same page. Through my experience working with the school's administration, I came to realize that the professors were working just as hard to learn at the same pace as we were.

I think it's very interesting to look at it from that perspective and see that it's a learning experience for not just students, professors, but also for administrations and school planning boards to just have to figure out on the fly what's going on, and we're all making our best effort. It's a time where we all have to stick together and help each other out to make sure that it works as best as possible.

Brigid: Oussama, thank you so much for calling WNYC. Good luck in your studies in grad school. Let's go to Doug in Brooklyn next. Doug, welcome to WNYC.

Doug: Hi, thanks for taking my call. I'm calling because I have two kids in public school in New York, a middle schooler and a high schooler. I went to the rally this weekend, and a lot of us were there, it was the open school rally, because most of the signs are showing that schools are safe, and our kids are really suffering. They're getting withdrawn, they're getting addicted to the screens, they're actually gaining weight. That's something some of the research is showing, there're no socialization.

These things are going to last, some researchers are thinking these things are going to be lifelong and we really, really want them to get back into school. My kids are crying, because they want to be back in school. I've never seen such a thing. Both schools offer now, remote school in class. That means they go to school, they sit six feet apart, stay in the same room for six hours and the teacher is not there.

It's like state sanctioned babysitting and that's only one time per week, the rest of the time they're online. It's very frustrating as a parent, and it's really saddening to see my kids go through something like this.

Brigid: Doug, I'm sorry and I know that the struggle you're describing is something that I think a lot of parents have experienced. Jessica, that idea of kids going into a school building, but still actually essentially having remote instruction because they are still looking at screens, how common is that?

Jessica: It's much more common on the middle school, and especially high school level. I've heard that a lot. It's the way a lot of schools are doing many, if not all of their classes, particularly upper schools. The reason is because there are so many electives and specialized classes. It's very hard to find enough teachers to double up on that, to have somebody in person and at home.

It's very frustrating, as the caller said. As Doug said, that their kids aren't even getting the interaction that they want, and that more elementary school kids have been able to get.

Brigid: It's really heartbreaking to hear the frustration in that story. What is being done? You started to allude to some of this to make classrooms safer for teachers and students, new rules in terms of ventilation and the testing that everyone needs to go through.

Jessica: The study showed that the classrooms appear to be safe with the safety precautions that were put in place this fall. The plan for next fall is to continue many of them. I think the CDC is about to reduce the requirement for how far apart students need to be because it's been six feet, I think it's going to go to three feet, Dr. Fauci was alluding to that in recent days, and that means that more kids can fit in place, but with masks, and we'll see how much testing there has to be done next year, but with testing this year, it appears that the incidence of cases and the spread in schools has been very low, as Doug pointed out. So schools do seem to be safe. There's also money in the stimulus bill to upgrade ventilation and maintain cleaning protocols and that sort of thing going forward.

Brigid: I just want to be clear on what the rule is that determines when a classroom or a school is shut down. Can a classroom in a school be shut down, or if there is a case, does it shut down the entire school?

Jessica: It depends. If there is a case in a classroom, the classroom shuts down. I believe that's for 14 days. Then if there are two unrelated cases in a school building, which might not be just one school, it could be a co-located school where there are two schools in one building, there could be a case in one school and a case in the other and the whole building shuts down, often for 14 days, though, that's determined by the contact tracers. That's what people want.

That's what many parents not all, and not all teachers, but many parents want to see that change, because they feel like it's overly cautious given the extremely low, under 1% incidents of positive cases in city schools right now. Much, much lower than the city-wide positivity rate.

Brigid: Jess, listening to that caller, Doug, talk about the impact on his kids, about them crying, do we have a sense of who this has been the hardest on and what kinds of help are available to parents and students who are struggling with really the mental health impact and the social isolation of this situation?

Jessica: I'm working on a story about that right now. I think that there's been a range of impacts on a range of kids, it depends on their age and their family situation at home, but a lot of kids have expressed to me feeling frustrated that they've fallen behind in school, they don't like that they're not doing as well in school, they're bored, some are depressed. Then, there's more extreme cases of self-harming behavior, or an increase, I'm hearing from social workers and suicidal ideations.

This is one of the reasons that proponents of reopening schools are so intent upon that, is partially, and the mayor himself has said this to address the mental health concerns because there is more infrastructure in place for families. It's actually related to what we were hearing from the first caller about cameras. Kids sometimes aren't comfortable in their own homes and that's what they don't want to open up their school into.

This has been really hard for people in a range of ways, the city is adding social workers, but that's still not going to mean-- There's still hundreds of kids per social worker even with this influx. They're increasing supports, but this is a big issue going forward.

Brigid: I want to talk to another one of our callers, Christina in Manhattan. Christina, welcome to WNYC.

Christina: Hi, thank you for taking my call. Can you hear me correctly?

Brigid: We can hear you.

Christina: Okay, wonderful. I would like to discuss the union rules, really, of the six feet versus three feet, which you touched upon earlier, and really the arbitrary rules that keep the schools closed, two unlinked cases in a building and it shuts the building down for 10 days. It's really difficult for our kids to get any traction, when really the schools are only open in name only. I'd like to discuss that and I'd like to discuss the union influence in this whole process and how political it's been. I don't think it's really about safety because we've never really proven that the schools are unsafe.

Brigid: Jessica, I know that you have covered this. What's your take on what role the union has played in influencing, dictating, collaborating on some of the rules that define when schools can open and close and the rules around it?

Jessica: She's right, actually, I misspoke and said it was 14 days, that has been revised since the beginning of the year, it is 10 days now. Though, sometimes 10 days is added to 10 days to 10 days. The union has fought for additional testing which turns up more cases, asymptomatic cases. The teachers argue that that's an important safety measure, some of the teachers argue that, not all by any stretch. The teachers union also is still committed to the two-case closure rule.

My assumption is that that is part of why it hasn't changed yet, but as more teachers get vaccinated, I think it's going to be harder and harder to stick with that. I think that there's a lot of political pressure to counterbalance that at this point. Another thing that's been interesting to me is that the union has fought for these precautions, and has been fighting to keep the two-case closure rule in effect, but there are also unions across the country that have been fighting school opening all together.

There were a lot of teachers who were angry at the union for not fighting harder to keep schools closed as a whole this summer. I covered teacher protests where teachers were walking around with mock coffins or working outside of school because they didn't feel it was safe. The city's teachers union certainly has been a huge player in this, but the story has gone a little differently here than in a lot of other cities.

Brigid: Jess, what can we expect next fall? I know you sat down with the city's new schools chancellor. Is the DOE planning ahead for hybrid instruction to continue? Will it be back to school like normal? How should parents and students start to get their heads in the game looking ahead?

Jessica: I asked the superintendent about this, the school's chancellor now, it's her first day today from Bronx Executive Superintendent to School Chancellor Meisha Porter. She said that the science is going to determine whether we need to still have social distancing and how much, but the hope and the working plan is to have schools open fully for anyone who wants to go five days a week.

There probably will be a remote option because there's an expectation that some parents still won't feel comfortable sending their kids to school in the fall. The goal she says, and the mayor says is five days a week for anyone who wants it. We'll have to see how the science community and its recommendations around distancing and those things affect that, but that's their plan. That's their hope.

Brigid: Well, I think hope is a lot of what we're going to be talking about in the days and weeks ahead. Jessica, thank you so much. We'll have to leave it there. Jessica Gould reports on New York City schools for WNYC and Gothamist. Thanks for joining me, Jess.

Jessica: Thank you.

Brigid: Before we take this break, I want to take a listen back to some of the voices from this pandemic year in city schools. This is a montage that represents some of the really amazing reporting that Jessica and Sophia Chang and our colleagues in the newsroom have put together and just gives you a sense of the challenge and the resilience of so many people in our schools.

Speaker 3: After the school got closed and the city locked the playgrounds, then you got this nihilistic [unintelligible 00:32:08]. You'd have these fantasies about bulldozing the school.

Speaker 4: Sometimes we've gotten into disagreements and she'll run to the bathroom. Because I guess the bathroom is our "leave me alone" moments. When do I get a break? Never.

Speaker 5: It's like going into a variety show and a guy was a juggler and got these balls and he's throwing them up in the air and I'm like, "Wow." Then the person who's helping them keeps throwing more balls, throwing more balls, and he's juggling, juggling, juggling. Then at the very end, he just pulled his hands back and they were glass balls. Then they all came down and just crashed bang, bang, bang. That's how it feels right now to be a New York City principal

Speaker 6: Classrooms and buildings are buzzing again. For the first time since March students are in those schools eager to learn and dedicated educators are ready to teach.

Speaker 7: David. It's so good to see you. You're taller.

Speaker 6: This is a monumental milestone for our city.

Speaker 8: This is the new normal, and they don't know any different right now, a lot of these little kids. We're not going to make a big deal out of it. We're going to support them where they need it.

Speaker 9: It feels good to wear a mask and you don't want to get the corona.

Speaker 10: This is not a happy day for us in the department of education. It's been an eventful and very challenging year.

Speaker 11: The mayor might be able to say that our schools are open, but they're not open.

Mayor de Blasio: High schools will reopen on Monday, March 26.

Speaker 11: I'm going to work hard and I'm still going to put in the work that I've been putting the whole year and show my teachers that I can do it.

Speaker 13: If you can survive this which you have, ain't nothing you can do.

 

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