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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, March 14th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: Columbia University says federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security searched two student residences last night but did not make any arrests or take anything. Interim President Katrina Armstrong says the agent served the university with two federal judge-signed search warrants so the university had to let them enter its property. It's not yet clear whether the action was related to last weekend's arrest of Columbia graduate and Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil. His lawyer says he's a US permanent resident and has never been charged with the crime. DHS and Colombia did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Bird flu isn't just for poultry. The New York City Health Department says it's investigating how two unrelated house cats caught the virus, which has been spreading across the country since 2022. Health officials are advising New Yorkers to avoid feeding their pets raw food or raw milk and to keep them from roaming outdoors. There was no immediate word on the condition of the cats. Humans are at low risk of contracting the virus.

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Michael Hill: 49 and partly sunny right now. Mostly cloudy today, then sunny and high in the mid-50s. Then tomorrow morning, drizzle, fog, and a slim chance of afternoon showers at 58.

Janae Pierre: Stay close. There's more after the break.

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Michael Hill: Five years ago this week, the largest school district in America closed its doors to students. Cases of the new COVID-19 virus were beginning to soar and New York City public schools made the call to send students home. Within weeks, kids were learning remotely from kitchen tables, beds, and living rooms, marking the start of a new era for education in the five boroughs. Dan Weisberg is First Deputy Chancellor at the New York City Department of Education. He joins us now to reflect on that time and how it changed education in New York City. Deputy Chancellor Weisberg, you arrived at the Department of Education in early 2022. Describe what that was like at that time for us.

Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg: We were right in the middle of the Omicron surge. There was tremendous fear and disruption and trauma for our kids and families. There was a lot of talk about closing schools and sending kids home again. We made the decision with the mayor and the chancellor to keep our school doors open, to do so safely, but it was really important, Michael, to keep our doors open. However, many kids showed up every day. They needed to be there, sometimes for a meal, sometimes to see their friends, sometimes to get mental health support. We were able to, in that very, very difficult time to keep our doors open every day through Omicron, through snowstorms, and everything else.

Michael Hill: What was the determination to say we must open the schools and we must have in-classroom instruction?

Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: We learned a couple of really important things. One is that sending kids home is going to be hugely disruptive to their education, to their learning, also in many cases to their social development and even to their mental health. Two, in addition to the really important work of making sure our kids are learning and growing and successful, what we provide in public schools is a really important public service. In other words, mom and dad have to go to work. Those were the things that were top of mind to us in making sure we kept the doors open. Thankfully, we did not see much in the way of COVID outbreaks in schools, but we did see is the vast majority of our 900-plus thousand kids showing up every day and learning.

Michael Hill: Now, Deputy Chancellor, chronic absenteeism, and you alluded to this, became an issue during that first school year back in the classroom. City data show 40% of students were chronically absent during the 2021-2022 school year. Even now, it's still up from pre-pandemic levels. What contributed to this and is there a way forward?

Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: A student is chronically absent when he or she misses 10% or more of the school year. Why is that important? Research shows if a child misses 10% or more, their learning is really going to be badly and negatively affected. This is something we track carefully, but here's the thing. We can't just have the goal of getting attendance back to where it was before the pandemic. It wasn't good, frankly, before the pandemic. About a quarter of our kids were chronically absent in 2019. That's not good.

Now, it's even higher. You're 100% right. It shot up to over 40% during the pandemic, which is certainly crisis levels. It's come down to the lower 30% now, but that's not good enough. We're working really hard to diagnose what it is that's keeping parents in some cases from dropping their kids off at school, the young kids every day, and our older kids from getting to school every single day. It's a big challenge right now.

Michael Hill: What's the most persistent impact on students that you think was caused by the pandemic? Now, how is the district still working to solve it?

Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: Listen, our number one job, what parents rightly expect from us is if you enroll your child in New York City public schools, they're going to learn. They're going to learn reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and we've got to do that well. The pandemic really disrupted learning, so we had a lot of catch-up to do. We have to give our educators and staff and the schools a huge, huge round of applause because through their hard work, our kids really have recovered to some extent to pre-pandemic levels in terms of their learning. Again, here's the issue, Michael. Here's the big issue. We were not doing our jobs well as an education system before the pandemic.

Michael Hill: Why did you say that?

Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: Because most of our kids were not at grade level even before the pandemic. Now, a greater percentage are not at grade level now. The big issue we have to confront is we are just not very good as an education system. It's true here in New York when kids are behind at catching them up. Kids are behind for a whole host of reasons. We have to get really, really good and it's extremely hard.

If it was easy, it would already be happening at helping our teachers, giving them the right playbook to catch kids up. We're engaged in that here in New York City in some really important ways, but there's a long way to go. We've got to keep it up until we can really say regardless of what strengths and aspirations and challenges your child has. If you enroll him or her in New York City public schools, they're going to graduate, ready for the next level.

Michael Hill: Deputy Chancellor, I have to ask you this. A lot of districts, a lot of parts of society have been battle-tested because of the COVID-19 pandemic. If it were to happen again this month, next month, the New York City public school system, would it shut down or would it stay open?

Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: Obviously, it's really fact-specific. If we were to have a novel virus, God forbid, like COVID again that was really dangerous and the public health experts were telling us it was too dangerous to open schools at all, we would be prepared. It's something, Michael, the behind-the-scenes, our folks from our IT department, our folks from our schools division work on and prep for.

We make sure that there is a device for each of our students should they need to learn at home virtually so we can provide devices to each of our students. We make sure that teachers know what platform to go on and what content to use if they're teaching virtually. This is true if it's a short-term emergency or even if it was a longer-term emergency. Certainly, we will be better prepared than we were when this shock came to us. It might go a bit smoother, but it obviously would be something we hope never ever happens again.

Michael Hill: Dan Weisberg is First Deputy Chancellor at the New York City Department of Education. Deputy Chancellor, thank you so much for joining us on this and please come back and speak with us again.

Deputy Chancellor Weisberg: I'd be happy to do it. Thank you, Michael. It was a pleasure to be with you.

Michael Hill: This week, New York City public schools are marking Civics Week. All week long, students are focusing on the theme "Democracy Begins Here" with projects that encourage them to use their voices to advocate for changes in their communities. Students were invited to submit soapbox speeches on the issues they care about. We're playing a few of them on air, including this one from seven-year-old Rafael Serras of PS 41 in Bayside, Queens.

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Rafael Serras: Did you know that being active helps lower the risk of childhood obesity? That's good, right?

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Rafael Serras: Hi, my name is Rafael Serras and I will be talking about why kids should have longer recess. I think having longer recess can help keep kids healthy. Did you know through play at recess, children learn valuable communication skills, including negotiation?

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Rafael Serras: Did you also know that 81% of teachers said that kids' behavior changes positivity after recess?

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Rafael Serras: 81%? That's almost 100%. As you can see, recess doesn't only help students, but it also benefits teachers. This is why I think students need longer recess now.

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Michael Hill: That was second-grader Rafael Serras from PS 41 in Bayside, Queens. I wonder if Rafael thinks we should have longer breaks at work too.

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Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC NOW from WNYC. Catch us every weekday three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. More soon.

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