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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It's September, September 2nd, happy September. We could feel the first wisps of fall in the air these last few nights. Some people find that a relief, summer lovers find it depressing, but no matter your seasonal likes and dislikes, what September 1st always used to mean was the kids are going back to school and you're paying your September rent. Now we don't know that either. Later in the show, we will look at the Trump administration's new eviction protection order and if it will affect you as a renter or as a landlord. We will also talk today about safely resuming your workouts. Did you know that today's the day that gyms may reopen in New York City? Yesterday was the day for New Jersey. We'll talk about gyms reopening and when that really is or isn't safe, but first, schools, Different districts in our area have different plans for in-person and remote, you know that. Some are still in flux. That is the case still this morning in the biggest system anywhere, New York City itself with more than a million students. You know that plan changed yesterday. We brought you that news when it broke yesterday morning, with a deal between the mayor and the unions to delay the reopening a little bit. Judging from the mixed reaction we're seeing from parents and school system employees, it may well change again. Of course, the virus itself can always cause a change. The new plan has teachers going back to prepare as scheduled next Tuesday the day after Labor Day, but then remote learning starts Wednesday, September 16 and in-person classes begin on Monday, September 21st. There will be random coronavirus testing. That's one of the big things in this deal, random coronavirus testing. Here is the mayor on that.

Mayor: There's going to be a monthly medical monitoring program. We're going to ensure that every single school has this program. It will be governed over by our Health Leadership.

Brian: Parents, teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, school custodians, anyone else? What do you think of this plan? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. Does it work for your kid's education? Does it work for your personal safety? Or whatever else you want to say, 646-435-7280. Or you can ask a question of the guests joining us now, Mark Cannizzaro president of the CSA, that's the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, usually called the Principals' Union. Mark, thanks so much for coming on today. Welcome to WNYC.

Mark: Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you for having me.

Brian: Again, listeners, parents, teachers, principals, paraprofessionals, custodians, anyone else, 646-435-7280, with comments or questions, 646-435-7280. Or you can tweet @BrianLehrer. We'll be watching the Twitter go by. It was really your people, Mark, the principals who called for this delay. Are you happy with the plan as announced?

Mark: Yes, I am. We didn't call for the delay because we wanted to delay the opening of school. We called for the delay because we strongly felt we needed to delay the in-person opening of school. There were still too many unanswered questions. Staffing is a major concern considering that we're going to need more staff than we had in the past to be able to coordinate both the in-person and remote instruction. Then there comes all the safety issues that were still being worked out. This gives us a little bit more time to work those out as well.

Brian: One issue that's been raised about staffing is possible teacher shortages. With all those seeking medical exemptions, or retiring or splitting up teachers into those teaching in-person and those teaching remote to the same kids on different days, does the Department of Education have enough personnel to fill the need?

Mark: That's certainly been one of our biggest concerns for quite some time now. The delay is going to help us figure that out as well. Right now, principals are notifying their superintendents of how many staff members they're going to need in order to fulfill these responsibilities. Once all of that information is in by the Department of Education, then they will be able to see if the number of substitutes available, as well as those folks that they are asking to assume teaching responsibilities who weren't currently teaching, will be enough. I think we're going to need some more though. I think there's going to need to be some hiring in order to fill all of the positions.

Brian: The delay of a relative few days can't fix an issue like staffing, right?

Mark: Yes. It's going to be a huge challenge. I think we will be able to take care of all of the students that are coming into the building and work out some things to get the appropriate amount of work to the students that are remote, and hopefully enough staff to communicate with those students and help them through. I'm sure that the staffing piece is going to be- maybe the majority will be settled by the 21st, but we're going to be dealing with it a little bit beyond that also. As long as we have enough people to man the schools, for now, we'll go from there.

Brian: Are principals going to have to plug teachers into subject matter they don't know?

Mark: Listen, that's a certain possibility. We're going to try to make the best matches we possibly can. When you say don't know, I think like the highly specialized areas, we're going to have to find the right people to teach those courses. Some of the other subject matter, people can teach and figure out even if it's something they're not used to, like a second-grade teacher teaching fourth grade or something like that.

Brian: Let's take a phone call. Here's a teacher Maria, in the Bronx. Maria on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling in.

Maria: Hello. Thank you for letting me talk. I'm a teacher in the Bronx and an advocate for my department [unintelligible 00:06:49] because our school is not ready to have [unintelligible 00:06:52] . We are teachers who really care about our students deeply and their family. We are very close to them. We were there at the very end before being quarantined. We saw this happening, like having a plan and the plan not being taken into consideration for our safety as teachers too. We care for our students and we're sad to hear that [unintelligible 00:07:17] because we want extra vacation. It's very, very sad. All we are asking is how is it that we are going into the schools on September 8th, knowing that we're not ready to even ourselves be safe and have a plan to have these meetings and prep for our students that are coming later. How are we also going to feel safe with this situation happening again?

Brian: What would make you feel safe, Maria?

Maria: I will say that the only way that will make us feel safe, or myself, is having a real plan that is going to be really taken care of because we have seen these happening before. There's a plan, they say, "We have the supplies." They say, "We have all the PPE," but we don't. We know that from the fact, from our principals, we know that. There's a story being told in the news and these beautiful emails. At the end of the day, these things are not happening. We are a few days away. I'm going to a building with a family that-- I'm also worried. I don't want to get anybody sick, nor myself.

Brian: I hear. Maria, thank you so much for starting us off. Mark Cannizzaro, President of the Principals' Union, do you think a lot of heads were nodding out there among your members?

Mark: Right now, the delivery of a lot of this PPE and some of the plans is ongoing. The Mayor and the Chancellor have assured us that every school will be ready to open. If that's not the case, and the principles are notifying us that that's not the case and the United Federation of Teachers Chapter Leaders are notifying us, we'll certainly get in there and make sure that either they're ready or they won't open. There's been a pretty aggressive plan in place to get everything that people need. We've been assured that the commitment is to get everything there. Now, look, everybody has a different tolerance for the levels of safety and precautions that are in place. No plan is going to be perfect. There is still a virus out there, that is a dangerous virus. Our numbers are low right now, and our goal is to keep them low. If we feel something is not safe, we're certainly going to intervene.

Brian: Alana, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alana. Thanks for calling in.

Alana: Hi. Just to comment. I'm a parent of a high school senior. We've been having weekly calls with the principal to keep us informed. It's been great. I honestly think it's foolish to think that we can start with some in-person education. I want my daughter to go back to school and she wants to go back but I think that given what's happening across the country, they're ultimately going to have to switch back to remote learning. I just think it's too soon realistically, and it's going to be a mess.

Brian: What do you think about the random testing plan, Alana, have you looked at it?

Alana: I have looked at it a little bit. I just don't think it's sufficient. It's not going to capture the students. Our system is huge and I just don't think it's going to capture the students. I think we're going to find out very quickly that people are going to get sick and the teachers have every right to be worried.

Brian: Thank you so much for your call. Let me use Alana's call as a jumping off point to what might've been the last question in this segment, but I'll ask it now. My guest is Mark Cannizzaro, president of the New York City Principals' Union. Some people in the system I know, and Alana was articulating her desire for this, suspect that this delay that your union agreed to, is just that, a delay, to kick the can down the road a little toward what you really want which sounds like is what that caller really wants. No in-person school for fall semester. Is that what you really want? Is that what your principals really want for New York City?

Mark: Actually, what we really want to be able to do is get back to school with everyone at once and know it's going to be safe and have a vaccine and things like that. No, that's certainly not our goal and it never was our goal. If numbers tick up and the mayor's been clear about this, and we've all been clear about this, if numbers tick up, we may end up shutting down. We understand that there is a flu season coming up. we understand that there are some people that feel we could have a resurgence of this. We look around the state and the country, and we do see the numbers ticking up. That's a major concern. There's no doubt, but our call to delay had nothing to do with that. It had to do with the fact that we simply weren't ready to open at this point. That's even putting the PPE aside and putting the safety aside, which of course you can't because it's the number one priority. We weren't ready to open because of staffing issues as well. We're hoping we're able to get all that worked out between now and the 21st so that we can open. Again, there's no desire to kick the can down the road, but we're all completely aware of what Alanna just said, that there is the potential for an uptick. If that happens, we need to be ready and we need to switch over back to all remote if that does in fact happen.

Brian: I got a comment, a comment from a listener that asks why not reopen more gradually like Boston? Are you familiar with what Boston is doing? I'm not.

Mark: It's not specifically with Boston, but there are schools around the- systems around the country that are, gradually opening with certain grades at a time and, and things like that. That plan was considered, you know, here in New York City. It was just that the Department of Education and the mayor decided for this hybrid plan, which, you know, does something similar in that it reduces the number of students in the building at any one time. It does have certain differences. It was just that it was a different model chosen at this point.

Brian: Aliana in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hello, Aliana

Aliana: Hi, Brian and Mr. Cannizzaro. Thank you for taking the call. I have two questions. One around testing. I know originally the UFT had asked for the DOE to require all students and staff to be tested for COVID 10 days before returning to school buildings. That seems to have gone by the wayside. I'm wondering why, and just want to raise concern for being back in school buildings for two weeks before this 10%-20% random sampling of testing begins. My other quick question is just, I want to ask Mr. Cannizzaro if he will hold De Blasio and our chancellor accountable for the 3% threshold. I know the state's threshold is 5% for closing school buildings and I just wanted to ask about that 3% threshold.

Brian: Aliana, thank you so much. For people who don't know what that refers to, the 3% case positivity rate threshold is what they say they will adhere to that is if in these random tests, it looks like more than 3% of a school population is COVID-positive, even if asymptomatic, they would close the school building. Do I have that right, Mr. Cannizzaro?

Mark: Yes. It's 3% actually of a citywide rate will shut down the system.

Brian: That's if there's a 3% citywide positivity rate on the test that people take, that would shut down the whole system. Currently, it's under 1% and that's one of the reasons Mayor De Blasio feels it's safe to go ahead. What will happen in individual schools if they're doing random testing in each school? What happens if a school comes back with a 3% rate?

Mark: There is a plan in place for each school as well. It's actually even more cautious than a 3% rate in a school. If two children from different classes test positive, the school will be closed for at least 24 hours for tracing to happen and see if there's a larger problem and they'll be cleaned in the meantime. There is an individual school plan, as well as the citywide plan. To the question, yes, of course, we will hold people accountable to that rate. I don't think we're going to have to. It's been stated publicly and we believe the mayor and the city is committed to that. Yes, we will certainly hold them accountable.

Brian: The caller's other question was about those first few weeks. It's going to be a few weeks before the first of these random tests, which is different from what the UFT was first demanding, which was that all teachers and staff and students get tested 10 days before they enter the building for the first time. Why should people feel safe without that?

Mark: The medical experts are the ones that ultimately agreed on this particular plan. I know that they had doctors from many different places, epidemiologists that were highly-rated, very high in their profession and well-regarded and they got together and felt that this plan would be a particularly good plan because it would be ongoing and random sampling and they felt that was the best way to try to keep these numbers down.

Brian: We have all the A parents calling in. We had Alana two phone calls ago. We had Aliana the previous phone call and now we're going to Adriana on Staten Island. You're on WNYC. Hello, Adriana.

Adriana: Hi. I was wondering why couldn't the Board of Education put a camera in the classroom and let the students who are virtual whether they be blended virtual or full-time virtual Zoom into the classroom. This would alleviate your teaching your staffing problems because they would have the same teacher, they would feel part of the classroom. Then it would also allow for a more seamless transition if God forbid, the school does have to close and they have to revert back to full-time virtual learning. How come the simplest option is ignored and instead, we have two teachers synchronizing their learning, and now you've doubled your staffing requirements?

Brian: Mark.

Mark: First of all, Adriana, Staten Island is my hometown and I'm going to give a shout out to the school where I was principal, IS75 in Huguenot, so it's great to hear a call coming in from Staten Island. That's certainly a good and valid question. The biggest concern regarding that was schools not being able to have the bandwidth with everyone online at the same time trying to broadcast into the classrooms. That was the biggest concern. We were concerned that it wouldn't work. Then there were some other concerns about how effective it would be with the students Zooming into the classroom or some other way connected to the classroom depending on where the teacher was standing and those type of issues but the biggest thing was, we didn't feel that the bandwidth would hold the work that way that would be able to happen. However, I do expect that that will happen in some cases, and some teachers will be doing that.

Brian: Adriana, thank you very much. To that concern, how is this going to work? What would happen in a math class where linear progression is required? Will different teachers be teaching the same high school math students on different days, one on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, the other on Tuesday, Thursday as they alternate days for when they're in school and when they're home and can that work?

Mark: Yes. Well, first of all, yes, in some cases, that is going to be happening and probably in a great number of cases. This is something we haven't done before. There will be a period every single morning for the teachers to coordinate with each other about the content that's being taught. There will be uploaded material to keep students and staff on a pacing calendar so that they are teaching the same content on the same day. Yes, this is going to be a major coordination effort between the pedagogues and they're going to have to spend that half an hour constructively every morning, making sure that similar content or the same content in a similar fashion is being covered.

Brian: All right. We're still not getting out of the A's. Angela in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Angela.

Angela: Hi, good morning. How are you? Okay, good. I'm so happy that it has been delayed a bit and the way that it has been so that because it would have been a mess had the teachers reported to work the 8th and the students come the 10th, it would have been a mess. My number one concern, the students having the technology that they need. In our building, I'm in a middle school, the school exhausted all of their supplies and gave them out to the existing students. Now, the sixth graders that's a large influx of new students. Now you have all of these new students that are coming into the building. That technology piece, no one is talking about that. We need to look at that to make sure all of the families have, there were issues where there were multiple children in a household and it was only one device. Also, again with the language barrier because I'm semi-bilingual and speaking to my Spanish-speaking parents, some of them didn't know, the information wasn't given out to them. At the very least, at the very least, we need that time, in the beginning, to make sure the people who, the students or the families that have chosen remote learning, they have the equipment that they need to have. Yes, absolutely, teachers do need the time to sit down and work together because a lot of times, and as a principal, a former principal, you know that the first couple of days of school, you have all of these meetings with the teachers and we're looking at these PowerPoints and we're going over X, Y, and Z. Meanwhile, we could actually use that time to fix up our classrooms and to work together with our colleagues. This is definitely needed. In terms of that other parent, that calls a little early and she doesn't feel that- she thinks that we will go back to remote learning, we can't start with remote learning with hundreds of new students, families that you don't know. We need to be in there for a minute, at least to get to know the students, to get the families, to make sure that they have what they need if we have to do fully remote. [crosstalk]

Brian: It sounds Angela like for you as a middle school teacher, you want it to be safe obviously, but you really want to go back on behalf of the interests of the kids, it sounds like.

Angela: Oh, most definitely. We want to go back. Our babies, they're getting lost. I can tell you so many different scenarios of the students even some of my top students that at home, they're lost. "I don't want to be home. Every time I have a minute, my mother's making me do chores." The kids want to go back. They definitely want to go back. Just a food of thought and then I'll get off the phone. Food for thought. It's not funny, but I have to laugh at this. We're going through all of these steps to make sure that the social distancing takes place in the building, we have the proper PPE device, everything. Guess what? Especially as a middle school teacher, those students show up to school a half an hour, an hour before to play football with one another, to hang out in the parking lot by the school. We're doing all of that to keep them separate. They're going to spend the first hour before school hanging out and socializing with one another. We just have to take care of ourselves. We have to take care of ourselves.

Brian: Angela, thanks for your-

Angela: Thank you, Brian.

Brian: - obviously dedicated service and thank you for your call. A lot in that call, Mark. You want to react to the last thing about keeping the kids separate from each other physically before the bell rings?

Mark: Yes, sure. Listen, that's common sense. We understand that kids are kids and they're going to interact. You're talking about before the bell rings, after the bell rings, we're talking about students in elementary, middle, and high school. We can give them all the guidelines that we want to give them. There were going to be moments when people aren't standing six feet apart from each other, you see it in the supermarket, you see it on the streets right now, and we're going to see it in the schools. That's reality. We're going to do the best we can to keep everyone as safe as we possibly can. The reality is kids are kids and humans are humans. They're going to sometimes violate that six feet of space and the social distancing part. Our folks are charged with doing the best they possibly can, and the teachers as well. As far as the devices are concerned, she's absolutely correct that we have an issue with the devices. What she's not correct about is that no one is talking about it, we've been talking about it. My team has been working with the DOE to try to make sure that principals are able to get the devices they need. Right now, it's a concern but we're going to get all the devices in the kids' hands as soon as we possibly can.

Brian: What further support do your principals need from the city to support their teachers on making remote learning as good as it can be? Are you getting everything you need from the Department of Education?

Mark: We've been so concentrated right now on the getting schools open part, that we certainly need to spend more time on the remote. Because even if we stay in this blended model, the majority of students, the majority of time are still going to be learning remotely, at least for the time being. Yes, we've had some trainings and we've done some sharing of best practices and such, but we need to do a lot more work because we've learned quite a few things about remote learning. We started off a little bit rocky, we got a lot better, but there are some people out there now that are doing incredibly creative and effective things in a remote environment. We need to make sure we could spread that knowledge around and get everybody up to speed. This is going to be a work in progress, but the thing is remote learning, to some degree, is going to be here for forever now at this point. I see a future where on snow days, there are certain remote learning happening. On times when we have other weather-related incidents, which are happening more and more often, that we're going to be switching over to remote learning so that we're able to get the required amount of time and days, the 180-day requirement in without having to worry about potentially extending the school calendar.

Brian: We're finally up to the Bs; Brandon in Manhattan. You're on WNYC with Principals' Union President, Mark Cannizzaro. Hi, Brandon.

Brandon: Hi, thank you. By the way, of course, I'm going to start out with the obligatory, "Thank you for your show. It's always great."

Brian: Thank you very much.

Brandon: I'm a parent of two high schoolers, teenage girls, they're twins in two different schools. I've been impressed by the principals and teachers. In every case, we've been kept informed, the kids have been kept informed. These are two different schools, two different principals have done a great job I think. I think also I have to be thankful to the unions. This day is very welcome. My kids need to be in school. I want them in school. I was a kid of a single parent and if she didn't have us in school every day, she would have died. There must be thousands of these families in New York, they need the school. My kids need the school, they need the social and the personal interaction but the delay is very reassuring. It helps send the message that you guys are paying attention.

Brian: You're sufficiently reassured by the random testing plan that you as a parent of teenagers, that you are going to be safe when they come home from school?

Brandon: I'm sorry, those two phrases in the same sentence, parents of teenagers and feel safe. Life is a risk as everybody says, but especially-- I have two teenage girls with me. Nothing is sure. My high school experience wasn't exactly smooth. There are going to be bumps in the road but I feel that we have a partnership that the teachers, the supervisors, administrators, the parents, are together on this. I'm praying that the students are also but yet to be seen, I guess. I actually feel good. I wanted my kids back in school, and this is the way to do it.

Brian: One satisfied customer. Brandon, thank you very much. Mark, school budgets were cut for this year. That's not even counting what could be devastating additional cuts from the state. Can you tell us what the impact of these cuts have already been at some individual schools, even as it looks like you're going to need more money for cleaning and ventilation and the extra staffing?

Mark: School budgets have been a concern for quite some time, with disparate budgets around the city. However, right now, it's obviously even a bigger concern. The budget cuts that come forth generally happen and then there's appeals and people are able to staff their school sufficiently. However, there is no way that schools are going to be able to absorb with their current budgets the additional staffing they need. That's going to have to come from the city and exactly how they're going to provide, that's a trick that the mayor is going to have to work out, but we certainly have an increase in need, financial need due to this pandemic and due to the staffing increases and all the supplies and there's just no way around that. School is a priority and opening schools is the mayor's priority and I'm glad to hear it's the mayor's priority. That's something that's above me at city hall and I'm glad I'm not the one that has to work that out.

Brian: We're going to go crazy here and skip to a D name. Darcy in Bed-Stuy, you're on WNYC. Hi, Darcy.

Darcy: Hi, Brian. It's a pleasure to talk to you. This is the hottest ticket in town for teachers, I'm telling you. I can't believe I got through.

Brian: I bet.

Darcy: The line that Mark- and I forgot his last name just said-

Brian: Cannizzaro.

Darcy: -about- Cannizzaro -sorry, about how he's glad that he doesn't have to make the big-ticket decisions, that totally resonates because I've looked at my principal and said, "I am so glad I didn't choose to go into that line of work and that I got to be a teacher." This will be my 18th year and I have enormous pride in what I do and I love working with kids and I love being present for my kids. One of the reasons why I've been such an advocate for going all remote is because we're not ready to go back and if we go back and we do it and people get sick, it will have enormous catastrophic consequences. It'll be really traumatic for kids to have the kinds of, I'm sorry, I'm about to cry, it's so emotional for me, what we did on March 13th, when we dismissed our kids on that Friday and we had a feeling like we weren't going to see them again for a while, it was really hard for kids. It was really hard for teachers and then to slowly get this trickle of news about people who were suffering and families and, of course, the teachers that we lost and to never have that really properly recognized by the DOE with a sense of dignity, I just don't have faith in the DOE right now. I know that there's been a ton of organizing work that's going on with the more caucus with UFT and for the UFT now to upend all this work for six days of additional planning which yes, I'm grateful for now. This is amazing to have but I can't believe I just used the word amazing. It's not amazing. It's enraging that this is what we're going to get to be able to prepare for this incredibly difficult year that's going to be so important.

Brian: You do want, if I'm understanding you correctly, all remote for fall semester. Is that right?

Darcy: What I would love to see is all remote with a phased reopening plan. If we have a phase reopening, that would mean that we start slowly. The Boston plan looks amazing. Looks terrific. You got to check it out. When we saw the Boston plan, we said, "How come New York can't pull this off?" The Boston plan is what we should be heading towards, I believe. A phased reopening would be talking about the kids for whom remote learning is hardest, so our kids who don't know how to read yet, our pre-K, our K, our first graders. We start with them for two weeks. We start with kids with [unintelligible 00:33:24]</b> and then if it goes well, then we open it up to the rest of elementary. Then if it goes well, we open up the middle schools but the way that the city handled a phased reopening worked. Look at our numbers, look at our citywide numbers but to put the stress of moving 1.2 million kids, and I know that's not accurate because a lot of kids are going remote, but still, to open up the city schools all at the same time, all at the same day, it doesn't make sense. We had a phased reopening for our city, why aren't we doing a phase reopening for our schools>

Brian: Mark, why aren't you as the head of the Principals' Union, taking that stand along with that teacher?

Mark: First, let me just comment on the sentiment, and I agree 100%. Listen, we had some real tragedies both for our kids that were missing their in-person instruction and their students as well as for so many people, teaching staff, other staff, students, and administrators who suffered terribly through this virus. Some of them passed away and too many of them passed away and the grieving, we didn't get a chance to grieve properly with our communities. My sentiment is there and I sat with some of our administrators and shed some tears and I'm 100% understanding of that. Look, as far as the phased reopening is concerned, there are a number of people at the table here and we discussed all of the different possibilities. This is the one that ultimately was chosen. To some degree, it is a phased in that you having about 40% of the students at home fully remote, 60% coming in and of the 60% coming in, they're really rotating every third day most of them. It's like 20% at a time. It's a different type of phasing in. I certainly appreciate the sentiment also about some of the students that your youngsters who need to learn to read for the first time as well as some of the students with special needs and multilingual learners and such. It's certainly another approach. It's a valid approach, but it's just not the approach that was chosen. Regardless of which one was ultimately chosen, there were a lot of people feeling the other way. You had parents saying, "No, I need to get my children into school so that I can at least get out to work a certain period of time." There was so much that went into this and I don't think there is any right answer here, but it was the model that was chosen.

Brian: Darcy. I'm just curious. Given where you are starting from, what were you thinking as you heard the last two callers? The middle school teacher and the parent of high school students who really wanted to get back in there for the sake of the kids?

Darcy: I hear them and I understand exactly. I've talked to all of my parents this summer. When I say my parents, of course, I'm talking about my students' families. A lot of people are really desperate to get back to school, but school will be very, very different. Now I can't speak to middle school and I can't speak to high school in the same way that I can to elementary school, but sitting still for five and a half hours a day, instructional lunch, wearing a mask, like I said, I've been teaching for 18 years. I would not know how to teach like that. Can I squeeze in one other thing?

Brian: Sure.

Darcy: Because I think it's important for people to know, because, at the beginning of all of this, they said, "Teachers who don't feel comfortable-" I know Cuomo said these words, "Teachers who don't feel comfortable should not go back to school." I'm going to share some personal news right now is that my husband last year had colon cancer, was treated for it and so I kept waiting. I am sorry too and he's fine now, but he's undergoing chemotherapy right now. I kept waiting for the word that they were going to allow teachers to file for an accommodation to teach remotely if they had a loved one who was ailing, who was high risk, and that word has never come. I know that there are a lot of teachers right now who do not want to go back into the building because or into their buildings because of that situation. Now I went back and I looked really closely at what makes you high risk and enhanced risk for COVID. It turns out I am enhanced risk myself. I was able to talk to my doctor and my doctor said, "You're right. You're absolutely enhanced risk." I will be teaching remotely this fall, but I feel almost lucky to have a condition because my husband is the one that's high risk. I don't know why the union didn't fight harder for that contingent of teachers because that's a vocal contingent.

Brian: What an important question and Darcy, thank you for your call and thank you for your service. Is she right about the categories? If you are living under the same roof with somebody who is high-risk, that is not a legitimate reason for a teacher or a principal to get an exemption, Mark?

Mark: Yes. That's the city guidelines. The city guidelines are to get an exemption, you have to be the person that is at a high-risk or an enhanced risk. We certainly think there should be some exceptions made to that, but at this time, there aren't.

Brian: Last thing. We're almost at a time, and we thank all our callers for lining up in alphabetical order. You can't get middle school kids to do that, but thank you for doing that. We'd have to go till 10 o'clock tonight to get to the Ss. There are so many S names. We were just going and going and going, but seriously, what happens if somebody refuses to take one of the random tests?

Mark: Well, that's still being worked out and there's a lot of questions regarding that. The thing I think that is important to know is that the random tests are not the invasive test that goes way up the nose, that's just a swab on the inside of the nostril. Most of the adults could do them themselves. Some of the youngsters might need a little of a little assistance. The idea of this is we talked about this earlier where you're asking why we're not being more cautious, but the idea of this is to try to protect each other. That's what this is all about. We want everyone that's pulled in that sample to take the test. It's only evaluating whether or not you have COVID and we're going to try to push everyone that's required to take the test. That's a question that we're still working through. I see no reason for folks to not want to take this test. Again, it's a non-invasive type of test and it's simply protecting yourself as well as others.

Brian: Mark Cannizzaro, president of the Principals' Union, technically, the Council of Supervisors and Administrators, thank you so much for coming on with us today and answering so many questions.

Mark: Thank you for having me, Brian, have a great day.

Brian: Listen, as you can tell from our calls, this is not a resolved situation. People feel very differently about it in different positions in their lives. We're going to keep covering the reopening of school conversation with another segment that we're planning on tomorrow's show and, obviously, we will keep on this as long as necessary including, obviously, when school reopens in whatever way it does reopen because then people are actually doing it at home doing the remote learning and there'll be so much to continue to cover and talk about there. Obviously, we plan to stay with you on this, to stay on it, on this. Thanks for all your calls today. Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Much more to come.

 

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