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Brian: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. As you've just heard on the news, some New York City public school principles are now calling on the Department Of Education to delay the start of in-person schooling by a week to allow time to prepare the classrooms and to get PPEs in place. They're complaining that there aren't enough specifics being made known about the metrics for ventilation and other preparations for in-person schooling in many different kinds of buildings. Running a school is a unique and gigantic challenge during a pandemic, and now we'll have a roundtable of three New York City principals.

So with us are Moses Ojeda, principal of Thomas Edison High School in Queens, Roshone Ault Lee, principal and founder of the South Bronx Academy for Applied Media, which is middle school, and Alexa Sorden, principal and founder of the Concourse Village Elementary School in The Bronx. We have an elementary school, a middle school principal, and a high school principal. Principals, welcome all of you to WNYC. We so appreciate your time today. Hi.

Moses: Hi, and thank you.

Roshone: Good morning. Thank you.

Alexa: Thank you.

Brian: I'll ask you to react to the news, which is not what we originally invited you on for because we didn't know that this news was going to break. Some New York City school principals are now calling on the Department of Education to delay the reopening of in-person school. I wonder if any of the three of you think that that's necessary to be prepared in your school buildings. Principal Ojeda, Thomas Edison High School, can I ask you first?

Moses: Sure. First of all, thank you for having us here. For me, I think I speak for all leaders of the city when we say we do need to delay the start. I say that because we need time to prepare. If we're to do this properly, we need to inform our communities. We need to inform our staff members of the new procedures. Most importantly, I think about my incoming ninth-graders who are new to our building. I need that time to work with them and their families to acclimate them. The same for middle schools who are expecting incoming sixth graders.

The delay of the start of the school year doesn't mean students wouldn't receive education, they would, remotely, but would give us the time we need to plan accordingly to make sure everyone is safe for the reopening.

Brian: Principal Ault Lee, same question for you at the South Bronx Academy for Applied Media, the middle school.

Roshone: Yes, good morning. Thank you also for having us. I am in full agreement with my colleagues. Time does not have to be our enemy. It can actually be an ally. If we delay the start of school, and we're able to strategically plan and think through and mitigate all of the challenges, it will be beneficial for everyone. One thing that I think that is crucial, especially as I consider the leaders across the city, is to interrogate the field. What are other principals thinking as far as, how long do we need to identify what is necessary in order to move ahead and to reopen schools intelligibly?

Brian: What do you think the answer to that question is?

Roshone: My answer is interrogate the field, send out a survey, specifically to all school leaders. Get gauging, how much time do you think you need? Then once we analyze that data and see, "Okay. If we're seeing that realistically by the end of September or mid-September we're going to be ready, we would have met with our leadership teams, our cabinets, our parent representatives, and our building councils as well." I'm in a campus school, so I have a need right now to go into the building, walk the building with the custodial engineer, identify the areas that we are considering for shift-space, what the social distancing looks like, what are affecting the ventilation systems.

I really believe if we interrogate the field, come up with-- Another thing that does is validate the voices of the street-level bureaucrats, the leaders that are on the ground.

Brian: Alexa Sorden, principal and founder of the Concourse Village Elementary School in The Bronx, same question.

Alexa: I too agree with my colleagues that we should start the year in remote. I think when folks hear the word delay, they think that we're not providing instruction. I think that's something that Moses said in his statement. I would like to begin the year in remote so that our students are receiving instruction, and it's something that most of them were familiar with, since that's how we spent half of March, all of April, May, and June. It would be an easy transition for them to start the year, while we're on the ground trying to figure out the logistics of, "What does it really look like to come in-person, and is it safe?"

Analyze, like Roshone mentioned, in terms of our ventilation systems, how are we collaborating with our campus principals because I too am in a campus building with three other leaders? This all requires time and because this is a matter involving health, we cannot move in haste. We really have to be really thoughtful about everything that could potentially go wrong.

Brian: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for the three principals who are our guests. New York City public school parents, you're of course welcome to call. New York City public school teachers, you're of course welcome to call, or anyone else with a relevant question or comment, 646-435-7280. I don't want to leave out students. New York City public school students, you're welcome to call 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a question or comment @BrianLehrer. I'd like to ask each of the three of you what you're hearing from the families whose students go to your schools in terms of their own decisions.

This is not to get you to criticize the Department of Education. This is just to get you to give us a sense of the families that you're dealing with. The mayor took a lot of criticism this week, and the DOE Chancellor, Carranza, for saying that in the survey that they sent out 700,000 out of the million or so kids will be choosing in-person schooling. I think more accurately, a small percentage of families even knew there was a survey and returned the survey. It's just that only about a quarter of the students' families said that they definitely were going to opt-out.

For everyone else, it, for the most part, remains to be seen, at least in terms of, I think an honest reading of the statistics. What are you each hearing from your own families in terms of hunger to return versus reluctance to return and what they want from you in order to return? I'll go in the reverse order this time, Principal Sorden, from the Concourse Village Elementary School.

Alexa: What I'm hearing from my families is there is a hunger, however, there's also reluctance with that hunger. I have the younger group. I have three-year-olds in the building to 5th grade to about 11. We do know that they benefit a lot from the explicit instruction, and that's the beginning of their school career. They do thrive when they have the support of the educator. However, our families are reluctant because they can't fully comprehend our systems in place to make sure that all children are healthy and safe. In thinking about how we're going to keep all children safe, we have to probably really be more transparent or be able to provide a system that they are able to understand so that they believe that their children will be safe in our care.

Aside from that, it's the multi-generational households that we're also providing support for. When we think about who's supporting the parent that's working, oftentimes is a grandmother, or an elderly aunt, or someone that may have a pre-existing condition or currently has a condition. Because I am in The Bronx, our asthma rates are pretty high. Some of my parents voiced their concerns regarding their children with asthma. They don't want to send them to school because they don't want to run the risk of their own child becoming sick or a family member, who could potentially provide care for their child, becoming sick as well.

Brian: Principal Ault Lee from the South Bronx Academy for Applied Media, I guess whichever order we go in, middle school winds up in the middle.

Roshone: Right. [laughs] Sure.

Brian: What are you hearing from your family, same question?

Roshone: In reviewing our learning preference survey, less than half of our parent-guardian population took the survey, but out of the parents who took it, 70% are opting for fully remote, and the majority are our incoming sixth grade. Similarly, to what Alexa stated, many of my scholars live with their grandparents or individuals who may have underlying health conditions, so families are rightfully concerned. We have Tuesday Talks sessions since the school year ended, and many times when the families come on, a lot of the questions revolve around safety.

They're concerned with how the standard of the mask being, "Wear everyday," how is that going to be enforced if specific children don't wear them? A lot of it is around safety and then trying to really think through, "Is this going to make sense for my child? Is my child going to come home and infect others in the household?" Then, "How do we mitigate and manage students who are in different schools, may be in the same district, but in different schools? If one school closes and my child's school does not close, how do I ensure that I can keep my child safe? Which also has implications for the entire household."

Brian: If you have 75% of your students choosing remote learning, then you have instant social distancing among all the kids who want to return to the building. Is that correct?

Roshone: Well, it's 70% of those who completed the survey, and which the number that completed the survey is less than half of my scholar population. I can't necessarily generalize that to the entire school. I'm just going back from past performance in March, even before schools closed, attendance plummeted, because a lot of the parents were concerned about sending their children to school when we didn't really know at that point what exactly was happening. It seems that even though there's a lot more children to complete the survey, the reality may be that more opt in for blended.

To answer your question, in that case, then social distancing will make it easier for us to plan in-person learning, but we just don't know yet.

Brian: Right. Principal Ojeda from the Thomas Edison High School in Queens, how about your families?

Moses: My families, I think like most families who've selected a school, select a school for the reason that the school, what they have to offer, but also because of the leadership. Our families will follow more or less and put their child in our hands to say, "You've taken care of our kids all along, and we trust you to make the best plan possible for our kids." For me, I'm looking at a 50% split. 50% want remote and blended learning, but those numbers change. Tomorrow, because I say school's opened at Edison and reopening goes well, and within a week, I have someone who test positive, everyone can go remote learning overnight.

Although the service out there to help guide us, it can automatically change. I have now emails that are coming in from parents who are seeing the news and seeing what's going out there in other districts across the country who are saying, "I've changed my mind. I'm going to go from blended to remote now." We're fielding that as we go. That's why I think it's important, again, to give us the time we need to set those numbers straight right before we open the school, because it'll help us plan properly, and especially service those families who trust us that we're going to do the right thing, but right now, we don't have-- There's pieces that are missing of this puzzle. That's why the time is crucial.

Brian: Let me take a phone call for you all. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're talking to three New York City public school principals about their preparations and their needs for reopening school and the blended model that the city is getting ready to initiate in September. Julio in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Julio, thanks for calling in.

Julio: Hi, thanks for taking my call. First, I just want to say thank you. I come from a family of educators. I have a lot of respect for everyone who's working right now. I just wanted to say or question, what kind of role do community partners play into the discussion of school reopenings, like community school partners and after school and summer camp providers? Because I feel like we're often left playing catch up in the conversation, particularly in the face of budget cuts in the city budget. We're left out of the discussion in school, so how can and we be part of those discussions in school reopenings? Thank you. I can take my call off the air.

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Male Speaker: We seem to have technical problems at the moment. We're trying to get Brian Lehrer back on the line here. Don't worry, he will be with us in just a moment. You're listening to the Brian Lehrer Show here on WNYC.

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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Sorry for the technical problems, folks. As you may be able to hear, I'm now connected by telephone rather than through our usual internet connection from my home studio. We will get this problem resolved. For the meantime, we can continue like this with our three principles. Let me ask my producers to pick which phone callers will go on the air because I can't see that now with the technical problems that we're having. I can't see the phone calls to choose from them. You pick out the callers, and we'll go to some callers in a minute.

I want to ask about three principals, now that we've asked what the families are saying, what you're hearing from teachers, because we did a segment yesterday that included news from the Elizabeth New Jersey School System, that their plan for a hybrid blended some in-person some at home school year, has been cancelled for the moment because they don't think they're going to have enough teachers, with so many teachers in that school system having applied for medical exemptions because they don't want to come into school during COVID, and they feel they have valid medical reason.

I'm curious, and let's go down the row here. Again, Principal Ojeda from Thomas Edison High School in Queens, do you have any indication that you might have a teacher shortage in your school this year?

Moses: At the present moment, looking at my numbers, no. That is not a concern, but things can change. As we know, a teacher can put in a medical accommodation anytime throughout the year. They may start with reopening plans and be on board, but I may lose them within a week or a month, whatever it would take. I think the other concern I have is fielding the remote and blended learning. As we know, teachers can never be in two places at once, and so that would be something that we would have to field in the process of programming our school.

I think that at a high school level, one thing that I'm discussing with my colleagues, it's becoming very difficult to plan and program properly to give students the courses they need in order to excel and be ready for the real world.

Brian: Principal Ault Lee from the South Bronx Academy for Applied Media, any concerns about a teacher shortage in your school?

Roshone: At this moment, I do not have any concerns based on the accommodations. However, what my concern is, as the school year progresses, and if someone becomes sick, then that is going to be a concern in thinking about how to navigate so that there's continuity of learning for children and also ensuring that staff experiences are well. In addition to that, even though I haven't received any reasonable accommodations at this point, there are teachers who are fearful. If we are to address the social-emotional needs of children, and their teachers or staff in general, who may be fearful, that can project onto children.

We are supposed to be that defense and that source of ensuring that the social-emotional learning needs of our children are met. That raises many concerns for me.

Brian: Principal Sorden from the Concourse Village Elementary School in The Bronx, the same question. Do we have Alexa Sorden? Did we lose Principal Sorden?

Alexa: Hello, can you hear me?

Brian: Did you lose me again? Oh, now I can hear you. Go ahead, Principal Sorden.

Alexa: As of this present moment, I don't have a concern either. I have three educators that have submitted for a medical accommodation. I don't know if it's been approved yet. When, same idea, thinking about what would happen as the year gets closer, what happens if someone gets sick? Looking at my survey results, how could I match it? Only about 40% of my families completed the survey. Out of 40%, 70% wanted remote learning. Just thinking about, "How do I match the 70% that want to be in remote, versus the people that are on remote, versus the people that are in the building?" It's like a matching game. How do you match everyone accordingly and also taking into consideration which license areas are the ones that are not in the building? How does that impact your programming for your school building?

Just several issues just to take into consideration when we're thinking about programming, and who's in the building? Who's not? That's where I am.

Brian: Great. Okay. That's good information for everybody to know. I want to ask all of you. We'll start with the middle school principal this time, why not? If you think testing is going to need to play a role when it comes to in-person learning. I brought this up on the show a few times, that I'm very closely following what they're doing in professional sports right now. Not just as a sports fan to have sports back, but as a model for the rest of the society's other workplaces when they open up. Like, for example, in Major League Baseball, where there have been outbreaks on a few teams, but they haven't spread to other teams.

They've been able to continue the season so far because they have such aggressive testing and tracing. All the players get tested every other day, as I understand it, and then they can quarantine those players who test positive and the rest of the league schedule can continue. I think that's a question then that gets asked for any kind of workplace where a lot of people are grouping together, and that certainly includes schools. Is the Department of Education establishing any kind of testing and tracing and quarantining program that they're communicating to you as principals, and do you think one is needed? Principal Ault Lee from South Bronx Academy for Applied media, I'll ask you first.

Roshone: Yes, the New York City Department of Education has communicated a testing, and tracing protocol to all schools. What we are charged with on the ground is really trying to figure out, and this goes into programming now. For in-person, we need to really be strategic about how many cohorts that specific teachers are teaching. For example, in my school, pre-COVID, we made sure that children loop is there, especially in grade seven and eight, loop with their teachers for continuity and redundancy purposes, but now, we have to mitigate that because now our priority is going to be having teachers with less students, so that testing and tracing protocols can be implemented with fidelity.

When we're thinking about this, it's implications for programming. Something else is when I think about myself as an instructional leader, that is going to shift slightly into an operational leader because part of the testing and tracing protocol system requires that if there are specific classrooms that may need to be shut down versus an entire school, and then in my situation, because I'm on a campus school, what are the implications, if there are in the other three schools, closures of classrooms? Does that mean the entire building has to be closed?

While there are protocols out there, it's going to take-- and that's re-emphasizing this time factor, where we have to make sure that there's more time spent specific on mitigating these challenges, figuring it out. I believe that we can do it, but we just need more time to do so.

Brian: Right, but there's no specific testing requirement to come back into the school or to be tested periodically that students or staff would be required to follow. Is that correct?

Roshone: No, that's not correct. For school staff, we are to be tested before, I believe it's within seven to 14 days before the school year starts, and staff can elect into randomized testing throughout the year. As far as I know, to my knowledge right now, there has not been a requirement for students, but there for staff. There was communication released that we will need to be tested before returning to in-person.

Brian: Looks like we have a fifth-grader calling in, so let's take her call. Maya, you're on WNYC with our three New York City public school principals. Hi, Maya.

Maya: Hi.

Brian: Thanks so much for calling. I bet you never had to talk to three principals at once before, and you're not even in trouble.

Maya: [laughs] That's definitely true.

Brian: What's your question, Maya?

Maya: I just graduated fifth grade remotely, and I noticed that ever since I graduated, or ever since remote learning started, I actually ended up learning a bit less because normally, I'm in the G&T program, but since it was all merged, I ended up learning at a different speed that wasn't necessarily my speed. It was more one size fits all. My question is, if we continue remote learning, which we probably will, or even hybrid, will it be more one-on-one, do you think? What do you think the adaptations will be because this was kind of a first try?

Brian: That's no problem for you, yes. Principle Sorden, since you're an elementary school principal, I'll give you that one, okay?

Alexa: Got it. Hi, Maya, thank you for that question. It goes back to creating system-wide structures. Like in our school community, we did differentiate instruction. We already had a learning management system in place. We were able to give students the curriculum or the supports that they needed when we transitioned to remote learning. I think it's a valid question that needs to be considered in terms of, when we're creating online instruction, how does it mirror more so the students needs? How can it be customized? Could we create a system that allows students to select what they need best as learners and that supports the idea of self-driven instruction and student voice and their own advocacy?

It's awesome when they know themselves as a learner. Just to hear Maya's share that she could actually tell the difference, she can see that her learning was somewhat watered down, if I would say. Thinking about her feedback, who's the most important person in this, I think? We really should reconsider how we're putting out our online instruction to make sure that it's meeting the needs of all students.

Brian: Let's take one more. I think we have Show in Bed-Stuy calling in. Do we have Show? Hi Show, if you're there?

Show: Hi, I'm a grandparent, and I do have two grandchildren. I have concerns because I have not received this survey number one, district 16. I have not received a survey for my input, and I think I need to have governance or part of the process in terms of sharing what my concerns are. I didn't receive that. Number two, what guarantee do I have that this place is fully sanitized? What is in place? We need to know that ahead of time before we can even make any decisions because right now the schools are unkept because I watch people that go for lunches every day, the school is a mess.

How are we going to be able to make an intelligent decision in terms of allowing our students to come back when there [crosstalk]?

Brian: Principal Ojeda, I'll give you this as the last question, and then we're out of time for the segment. Principal Ojeda from Thomas Edison High School in Queens?

Moses: Yes, I'll take this one. Thank you. For me as a leader, one thing I've learned from this is that communication is key. That means that you need to communicate constantly, not only with your staff, but all stakeholders and community members. I've been holding weekly, if not bi-weekly, online meetings with our parents just to feel the questions and the concerns that you've just mentioned. I've also done my own surveys to hear what the next step should be for Edison, "What is it that you're concerned about?" That has really been insightful for our families to feel secure and that we have a plan in place.

As soon as I get additional information, I hold another session. I would encourage you to reach out to the school leaders and say, "Can you please hold a town hall?" because I know that's been effective for those principals who have done that.

Brian: Well, we will have to leave it there. I want to thank all three of you for taking time from your busy schedules and also just putting yourselves on the line by going on to the media and talking about the situations in your schools. So glad we were able to have an elementary school principal, a middle school principal, and a high school principal all coming together here to compare notes. The job you have in front of you, like the job you had behind you for the last months of the last school year, is incredibly difficult. So much of it falls on your shoulders, actually having to run your particular school buildings and manage your particular school populations as the politics goes on over your head.

Good luck to school year. Maybe we can all stay in touch a little bit. Thank you very, very much for your work and for your time.

Moses: Thank you for organizing it.

Alexa: Thank you for having us.

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Coming up next, Christina Greer on this--

 

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