It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Tuesday, April 7th.

This Easter and Passover week is usually spring break in many school systems, but not in New York

City this year. Mayor de Blasio and schools chancellor Carranza have canceled spring break in many school systems, but not in New York City this year. Mayor de Blasio and

schools Chancellor Carranza have canceled spring break in the coronavirus learning at-home conditions,

promising teachers and students four days off later in the semester. We'll explain why in a minute.

It's a controversial move. The mayor and chancellor also shocked many people by saying they will cancel Zoom, the online video meeting platform that many teachers have been using to convene their classes.

They have their reasons for that too, and it's also controversial.

It's a big lift transitioning to online learning for more than a million kids, many of whom don't have the computers or tablets

or online access that they're better off neighbors do. And the city is distributing iPads and

other things to help ensure that every child can learn in this environment. So how's it all going?

With us for this, with their reporting, and to help take your calls are WNYC education reporter Jessica

Gould who's here hi Jessica hi Jessica hi and Alex Zimmerman from the education news website chalkbeat

who I think we're still getting hooked up with WNYC oh you're here hi Alex yep thanks so much

for having me and I'll mention that WNYC and Chalkbeat are collaborating on covering the city schools during the COVID-19 period.

So, Jessica, why did they cancel spring break?

So it started with Governor Cuomo, who initially reduced spring break.

He wanted to maintain the 9th and 10th as days off for

Passover and Good Friday and the weekend that followed, but cancel next week because the

idea was they wanted to keep students engaged inside their homes on their remote learning

as opposed to increasing the potential for kids going

outside and maybe spreading the coronavirus. That was controversial in and of itself. And then

teachers were even, teacher, students and parents were even angrier to learn that the school's chancellor and the city have decided to do away with

...