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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer, WNYC. We're less than a week away from the start of public school in New York City. School has started already in other parts of our area. As those of you there know students, parents, and educators have to navigate a third year now. A third school year made complicated by COVID. Let's spend this next segment taking through some of what we know, and don't know about what to expect, and what's already taking place.

Joining me now for the latest on school reopenings are Jessica Cole, WNYC education reporter, and Sophia Chang WNYC, and Gothamist reporter. Thank you both for being with us this morning. Hi, Jess, hi Sophia?

Jessica Cole: Hi Brian.

Sophia Sang: Hi Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we'll open the phones from the start with your questions about school reopenings in and around New York City with Jessica and Sophia 6-4-6, 4-3-5, 7280, 6-4-6, 4-3-5 7280. Parents, teachers, school staff. How are you feeling now that things have started in your area or as we anticipate reopening of school in New York City and other districts next week, 6-4-6, 4-3-5 7280. Let me just dive right in Sophia, on one of the issues that you wrote about on Gothamist and that is the teacher's union in New York City which had said it was on board more or less with a vaccine mandate for teachers and staff now resisting aspects of it. Right?

Sophia Sang: Yes, that's right. The teachers' union, the United Federation of Teachers is asking the state to formally intervene so that the city will carve out some religious or medical exemptions to this vaccine mandate.

Brian Lehrer: What would a religious exemption, or a medical exemption look like? Are they specific in what they're asking for? Are there certain religions that are identifiable on paper that are anti-vaccine for their adherence, and are there certain particular medical possessions that we could list of medical conditions?

Sophia Sang: I'll take the religious component first. It seems like almost every major religion has urged their adherence to get vaccinated from the Catholic Dioceses. A lot of the Jewish religious leaders have urged their followers to get vaccinated. In terms of the medical exemptions, I know that there are possible allergies to some of components of the vaccines, but those are easily addressed with allergy medications. It's really only occurred in two to five people per million who have taken the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson

& Johnson COVID vaccines.

Brian Lehrer: We've opened that line of discussion the vaccine mandate for teachers and staff and its exemptions. Jessica, I'll open this other big controversy with you. I know we hear it all the time on the phones. Certainly, every time the mayor is on other days, there's not going to be a remote option in New York City. At least some number of parents are not happy about that. I guess the context is that last year, even last spring when the virus was perceived to be fading, like two-thirds of the families kept their kids home.

Jessica Cole: This is a huge question for me is how many people are in this camp of not just wanting a remote option, but actually actively going to keep their kids home. I've heard from a handful of these people. I'm not sure how representative they are, and their reasons range. Some of them have kids with either medical conditions that the city has acknowledged will require some home option, which frankly, mostly I think will be virtual.

Then there are people who have medical conditions that aren't listed in the qualifiers like severe asthma is not listed. I know parents whose kids have asthma, who aren't comfortable sending them to school. Then there are people who are just not comfortable sending their kids to crowded schools in a pandemic, and this is a really emotional, stressful moment for those people.

Brian Lehrer: There's at least two categories there. If I'm hearing you right, there are people who are lobbying for a remote option, which would be kids learning via their tablets or whatever device their teacher communicating with them. Maybe in a hybrid model while they communicate with the in-person students in the classroom as well. The other is homeschooling. Where they detached from in-person altogether.

The city does actually have a system for families who want to be officially registered as homeschoolers. Are we talking about both things right now and meaningful numbers?

Jessica Cole: I actually want to even add another category, because I just want our listeners to know that there is a category of conditions that they can apply to have remote or home instruction for, that would be provided by the city. That includes cancer, sickle cell, Crohn's disease, heart conditions, and it's available on the DOE website. You are supposed to be able to apply for accommodation, which I think in most cases will be a version of virtual learning.

If you were in those categories, I'm told that the process of applying is complicated, and that's why I want people to know and to get started as soon as possible if they're in that group. Then there are the people who are just not comfortable either because they have a medical condition that's not listed, or, because they're not comfortable sending kids at this time, and they can apply for homeschool which is its own application process.

They're the people I'm hearing from who are not prepared to homeschool but are not also willing to send their kids in. A question I have into the DOE right now is, what happens for the families that are considering or planning to keep their kids home for the first few days, few weeks? Will they be disenrolled, will there be outreach from our version of child protective services, because of chronic absenteeism, what legislators in the city council have called for is, a centralized remote option.

That wouldn't be necessarily your own teacher or teachers affiliated with your school giving remote instruction, similar to what kids experienced last year, but so far, and we're getting really down to the wire. It doesn't look like it's going to happen.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from a teacher, Christine in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi Christine?

Christine: Hi. I am an elementary school teacher, and I have a lot of questions, but the one that I want to pose right now is regarding testing in schools. I'm just wondering why there has not been a conversation about doing more testing in elementary schools, because none of those kids can get vaccinated. I know the city is touting that, "Well, everybody's getting vaccinated." Things will be better, but not in elementary schools. I'm wondering, has there been any conversation about that, because I haven't heard any?

Brian Lehrer: Sophia, do you want to take that one, obviously, kids under 12, at least as of now are not eligible for vaccines.

Sophia Sang: Right. That's a great question because it has changed this year. The city is testing 10% of unvaccinated students and staff every two weeks at every school. Now, last year, they were testing 20% of students, teachers, and staff at our schools. That was weekly. That is a dialing back of the testing protocol. The other significant footnote here is that you have to consent to be tested.

This is 10% of students who are unvaccinated and have consented to be tested. That is obviously not the entirety of the school population. The mayor and the health commissioner, Dr. Choksi keep pointing out that this is a floor of a testing protocol in terms of this is the minimum they're going to do, and they can always ramp it up at specific schools. If they're starting to see a problem or an uptick in cases. There are questions on why they did scale the testing protocol back from last year's weekly testing.

Brian Lehrer: Christine, thank you for your call. I hope that answers it in part, and let's go to another teacher calling in Ellie, Eli in Manhattan, Eli you are on WNYC. Hello?

Eli: Hi Brian. I'm so happy to be here. I love your show. I'm calling because I'm a teacher. I report back to work tomorrow. I work in the high school district, and I actually just recovered from a breakthrough case of COVID. I'm actually super glad I caught it now before students arrive, but I'm really concerned about the policy of not testing vaccinated students and vaccinated staff because even though I was vaccinated it was really rough. I don't want my students catching COVID and passing it on to their families.

I'm not really sure, my question is really like, what is the protocol for when a vaccinated teacher catches COVID? I haven't heard a lot of information on if we get paid time off, how that's going to disrupt the classroom experience. I have 30 kids in my high school classroom, and I know we're going to be math, but I can't see a world in which no one catches COVID this fall.

Brian Lehrer: Wow. Jessica, have people been dealing with this explicitly?

Jessica Gould: Well, I think that the breakthrough case and how it fits into testing is a real concern. I've heard it from other teachers as well, that the fact that they're only testing unvaccinated people at this point doesn't seem sufficient to many given the possibility for breakthroughs, even though breakthroughs are super-duper rare. I don't know about paid time off and all of that.

I do know that on the high school level when there's a positive case in a class, there will be quarantine for unvaccinated students. They can test back in after I believe it's seven days if they a negative test but breakthrough cases and how that fits into this, I think it's a murky area.

Brian Lehrer: Eli, can I ask--I see that you're coming from a charter school and you don't have to reveal any more information than you want to reveal, but I know some charters are offering a remote option at least for the first month or two of the school year. Is that the case in yours?

Eli: Sure. I actually have a couple of friends, I'm moving to the DOE this fall, but I have a couple of friends still in charter and they are beginning remote and then transitioning to full in person, but the DOE school that I'm in were going to be full in person.

Brian Lehrer: Right. Do you have any insight just from your own experience where you used to work or with your friends who you just mentioned who still work there as to what the goal is of saying that they're going to have a remote option, but only for the first couple of months?

Eli: To be honest, I'm really not totally sure. I'm wondering if it's a matter of safety. I also know that some charter schools are unionized and it's a matter of union negotiation to get back into the school building and creating a contract that the teachers and the school and the families and the community are happy with.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you very much for your quote, Eli. Good luck to you recovering and to all the students you teach. Jessica, how about that difference between, well, the big chain, the success academy, charter schools in New York City offering the remote option I think in the way that I described it for September and all are part of October and then supposedly not after that. Technically, charter schools are New York City public schools so why the difference, and what's their rationale. Is this another source of friction between Mayor de Blasio and the Charter School Movement?

Jessica Gould: The mayor hasn't really talked about the charter schools at all. It doesn't seem like he doesn't have the same level of control over them that he does over his own system. What they're doing hasn't come up all that much. They have more flexibility either by network or individual schools. I talked to a charter school last week that had started already several weeks ago and they're testing I think every week, but they're not dealing with the same broader union landscape and all of the different centralized situations within a huge system like the DOE serving almost a million students.

I think they can be more nimble. and in terms of the why success is waiting a few months and then going to reopen, I don't know, but talking to parents of young kids like myself, like Sophia, I think there's hope that there's going to be a vaccine for our children soon. I think there's also a wait-and-see quality to how Delta is going to play out and just how precautions are going in schools.

That's not an official statement. That's just how it feels approaching this time is that there's some sense of, we don't know how this is going to work out and it's a changing climate, both in terms of the vaccination and in terms of the virus.

Brian Lehrer: Sophia, anything you want to add to any of this last stretch of conversation or to Jessica's last point? Mayor de Blasio, certainly when he was here on the show last week, he was arguing that there's been so little Delta variant transmission in the summer school program and that the vaccines are probably coming for kids under 12 this fall. I think that part is questionable.

That even last spring, before there was widespread vaccination of students, teenagers, or staff, they had knocked down Delta transmission to very, very low. COVID transmission at all to very, very in the public schools. He makes these statistical cases, but at the same time, we hear these stories from all over the country now about schools opening and then kids having to go into quarantine because there are Delta outbreaks.

Sophia Chang: Those stories are certainly very worrisome to hear about. The mayor is certainly leaning a lot on vaccinations as a big tool in the reopening gambit. We did hear from the department of health today that almost two-thirds of New York City kids between 12 to 17 years old have received at least one dose of the vaccine. That is really good news that more than 65% of kids in New York City 12 to 17 years old have now received at least one dose.

Now, obviously, all the kids aren't old enough to be vaccinated yet the city is pointing to what they call the gold standard of COVID protocols with ventilation and sanitizing and testing and how they were able to keep transmission rates very low last year as proof that they know what they're doing.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk a little bit about comparisons. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are a New York and New Jersey public radio. Few minutes left with WNYC reporters Jessica Gould and Sophia Chang on the reopening of schools in our area with all of these COVID questions still in play.

By way of comparison, for example, in LA, public school requirements include every student and every teacher being tested once a week from what I've read. Every student, every teacher, regardless of vaccination status. Here's another comparison coming in on the phones, Molly in New Providence, New Jersey, you're on WNYC. Hi Molly.

Molly: Hi, Brian. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm such a fan of your show always and especially with this topic since it is so pressing and there are very few people who are covering it on such a local level. My concern is that here in New Providence, our district did a great job last year with lots of protections for our kids and many options for families, but this year they've removed it all and haven't really updated things with the Delta variant.

Specifically, my concern with this question is about masking because Governor Murphy mandates masks for all schools in the state, but our district does not require them when the temperature hits 75 degrees or above. Our concern is 75 degrees is not hot, it's not extreme heat, and so for the first few weeks of school, at least we may be just totally unmasked.

Brian Lehrer: That is really interesting. I did not know about that exception in New Jersey-based on temperature, you say 75 or higher Jessica, was that you saying wow?

Jessica Gould: Yes. I am not as familiar with the landscape in New Jersey as I am in New York City right now, but my understanding is that there are some particular policies that are being decided on the school district level as opposed to the statewide level. Is that right?

Brian Lehrer: As opposed to the statewide level, Molly?

Molly: It's definitely not clear that it's a statewide restriction, but our district is saying it was from the Westfield Regional Health Department.

Jessica Gould: I know that our colleague, Karen Ye who covers New Jersey had a piece today talking about back to school where she used some very emotional tape from some anti-mask people at a school board meeting. I know that masking is, I think probably more controversial and I don't know if it's super varied in how different districts are doing it, especially since the governor has a mandate.

Brian Lehrer: Molly, thank you for putting that on our radar and it's another example Sofia of the very policies from place to place. I mentioned the universal testing requirement in the LA public schools, New York doesn't have that. It does have a vaccine mandate and a mass requirement. Molly in New Providence is talking about the exemptions to the mask requirement, at least in that New Jersey district.

The New York City Catholic schools open today and my understanding is they have a universal math requirement, but not a vaccine requirement like the New York City public school system has. It's just chock a block, depending on where you go.

Sophia Chang: Right. There is definitely it does seem like while the CDC does put out guidelines, as we've heard from New Jersey, and from the Catholic schools, it's not always the same from place to place and the Catholic schools in New York City obviously have to follow a state health guidelines, which did mandate a mask requirement on campuses. Although the diocese in Brooklyn and in Manhattan had both told me they already had a mass mandate in place and they'll also have to follow the state guidelines on testing unvaccinated employees weekly, because they don't have a vaccine mandate for their employees, but they will have to follow the state's rules on testing.

Brian Lehrer: We're obviously going to talk to Mayor de Blasio listeners on Friday about this, I imagine is topic one, when we start with Ask The Mayor on Friday morning, with the opening of schools in the city just days away at that point and still uncertainties. I know one thing that parents hated last year was how much uncertainty there was until many decisions were made at the last minute on various things at various times.

As we head toward next Monday's first day of school in New York City, Jessica, and Sophie and maybe you can each tell me, the one biggest question that you're looking to have answered that is as yet unanswered, Jess?

Jessica Gould: The question is unanswered-

Brian Lehrer: We lost this Jessica. Oh, we have you back now, sorry?

Jessica Gould: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: What's the biggest unanswered question for you before Monday?

Jessica Gould: The question is what happens to kids who don't show up and then how much are kids actually going to be able to stay in school giving the rolling quarantines and closures we've seen across the country.

Brian Lehrer: Sophia for you and based on what you're covering?

Sophia Chang: I'm eager to see how the vaccination mandate in the city school employees, whether that's going to be litigated? What teachers and staff feel about the mandate? This is one of the strictest ones of any city agency, there's no option to test out. I want to see how this plays out and what effect it will have on our school year.

Brian Lehrer: Jessica Gould and Sophia Chang here, they report reporting on WNYC and read it on Gothamist. Thank you both for coming on.

Jessia: Thanks.

Sophia Chang: Thank you, Brian.

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