- Hi, I'm Christy McDonald, and here's what's coming up this week on "One Detroit".

It's the end of a long school year.

The local "PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs" kids share their experiences and Education Trust-Midwest Amber Arellano, on next steps for Michigan schools.

Plus, heading back to work in the office.

What you need to know and what employers legally can expect from you.

And then a musical experience.

The DSO teams up with the Michigan Opera Theater this weekend.

It's all ahead this week on "One Detroit".

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(lively music) - Hi there and welcome to "One Detroit", I'm Christy McDonald, so glad that you're with me this week as school comes to an end for most kids across the state.

It's been a long and exhausting year for kids, parents, teachers and administrators.

And there are some pretty big decisions to be made when it comes to spending billions of dollars headed to Michigan for education.

I'll talk with Amber Arellano.

She's the Executive Director of the Education Trust-Midwest.

Then more people are heading back to work at the office.

Will Glover talks with attorney Tony Paris about what employers can and can't mandate when it comes to the vaccine.

And we'll end it with a wonderful collaboration happening this weekend between the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the Michigan Opera Theater.

Here from DSO Music Director Jader Bignamini, MOT Artistic Director Yuval Sharon and acclaimed soprano and MOT assistant artistic director, Christine Goerke.

It's a cultural event you won't wanna miss.

But we are starting with the end of the school year.

And while a lot of decisions need to be made in terms of funding, retaining teachers and catching up on curriculum, we wanted to check in with students, so they could tell us what they've learned this year.

Here are some of our local students who are part of the PBS NewsHour student reporting labs.

- As the square comes to a close, I've learned that I really enjoy being by myself.

Learning virtually has been so much easier for me, just because I'm not in a classroom setting and there's no distractions, it's just me and my computer and I enjoy doing that and I enjoy being by myself.

- When we had that break off during COVID and it was March through June where we were completely locked down, isolated in our homes, I feel like that was the time that we needed our friends the most.

And I feel like we picked up a lot of social values from school that kind of went missing.

- Well, being online for so long and away from school, I soon noticed that I actually missed it a little bit.

My whole life I've dreaded school and talked about how much I don't want to go and I hate it.

But being away from it so long made me realize that it's not as bad as I thought.

- What I learned about school is that teachers are, they do a lot for us, more than we know, like they stay after school, trying to help us, trying to succeed and to be better human beings.

And they just try to be the best people that they can be for us.

- I am a very easily distracted person, and I also like learning better when I'm around people that are also learning with me, which are the students and also the teachers teaching me.

I'm just really excited to go back to the school, go back and have a normal life like we used to.

- Just physically being in the school helps you create your own environment and create that motivation.

Every year you have to recreate that environment with the help of your teachers, your counselors and your classmates.

And that's why I think school was so hard this year, because you had to create that environment by yourself.

- One thing I've learned about myself is if I put my mind to it, I can do it.

While we are virtual, I had trouble staying focused on my assignments, but I made a goal and it helped me to be more productive, not only at home, but also when we went back in person full time.

- Though the school year was tough and seemed very long and very boring and very challenging, I benefited from it.

I learned how I learn, what I needed to do to be a better learner and most importantly, how to properly communicate because communication was key this year.

- One thing I've learned from school this year is that everything is subject to change.

Anything can happen in a moment's notice, so you have to learn to adapt and overcome.

- I realize that it's OK to not be able to handle everything that's thrown your way, especially curveballs such as the whole pandemic, and realize that it's OK to ask for help.

- It's really about how hard you wanna work and effort you wanna put forth and how hard you want those good grades.

How hard you wanna succeed in life?

It's all about pulling things together and how well you can do in times of stress.

And I think COVID has really proved that to a lot of people and proved that together we can work and we can make things work.

- There are a lot of decisions that will be made in the coming months when it comes to funding for schools next year and how districts will work with teachers and students on learning loss from this past year, I caught up with Education Trust-Midwest's Executive Director, Amber Arellano.

- We are rounding to the end of the school year and I think it can't come soon enough for parents, for teachers and for kids.

- I was just saying to to someone, I don't know a parent or a teacher who's not exhausted.

This has been such a grueling year, a year for great empathy for one another and just to be in a place of support for one another.

- What has pandemic schooling in Michigan this past year shown us about education?

- Yeah, I mean, one, I think it's shown us like how critical in person learning and teachers are, there's really no substitute.

And I think for for so many kids who have lost so much learning because they weren't in school, they just didn't have that option.

It really underscores how critical public education is, for us as a society and not just for for kids and families, but for even our economy.

I think that another thing that we've seen is just how dramatic the disparities are.

The inequities that we have.

(clears throat) Some districts and schools had the ability to offer both in-person virtual learning at the same time as often in person learning throughout the same school year.

That takes a lot of capacity and resources that many public schools don't have.

And yet and there were other places where the gaps in terms of digital access and internet access were just so dramatic.

- Now we're in this really interesting place here in Michigan, we have better than expected school age funding revenues and then we've got the American Rescue Plan money.

The governor has proposed closing the per pupil funding gaps, putting more money into special education, and school psychologists and social workers, and also to school infrastructure.

That budgeting process, of course, is not complete.

Are we on the right path of where we wanna spend this money that we now find ourselves having in the state?

- A lot of focus on closing gaps between affluent districts and high poverty districts, more money for counselors, for school psychologists, the kinds of supports that are going to be needed as kids go back to school this year, recovering from the emotional and social toil that the pandemic has taken.

I think that we'll see in many districts focus on summer learning and Saturday schools to help kids catch up, which will be essential to address the unfinished learning that has occurred over the last year.

What will be important is what happens next summer and the following summer, making the most of these federal stimulus dollars, to focus in on what kids need and not only what, say, like facilities may need, if facilities need air conditioning to hold summer school.

Again, the pandemic has shown that there's no substitute for highly skilled, highly qualified, experienced teacher.

A 15/16 year old doing tutoring is not the same.

And so thinking about how do we leverage these funds to address the significant teacher turnover that we're seeing in high poverty districts in particular, how do we make sure that we're closing the teacher salary gap that we see between high poverty in affluent school districts?

- You start talking a little bit about teachers and the study that Education Trust-Midwest did, talking about teacher turnover.

And there are concerns about teacher retirements and that this year has maybe changed the way teachers think about their job.

What is the stress that we have seen on teachers and how do you think that's going to impact the next five years of what is happening in the classroom?

- We really need to address like... And how do we attract and retain teachers across the state?

Particularly in working class, in rural and urban school districts, that, again, there are these really huge differences and what the salaries that they can pay compared to say, a Birmingham or East Grand Rapids or Troy, those districts can often afford to pay their teachers much more.

We have to address the kind of conditions that teachers face.

We have to address like the kind of capacity and supports that they have.

If a school doesn't have a school counselor, for example, teachers are often tasked with doing the work of what a school counselor would do, on top of their regular teaching and homework and grading load.

- What kind of pressure will there be to help kids move along and to meet certain benchmarks now?

- So I think they'll be a lot of pressure on parents and schools to address this unfinished learning.

And I think, again, the challenge will be in the places where kids have been out of school the most or just had challenges with accessing virtual content, for example.

English language learners we know based on national research were some of the kids that lost the most online instruction because often the platforms were only in English and if their parent didn't speak English, they couldn't translate for them.

That left them far behind.

Students with disabilities, student that did not have consistent internet access.

So, again, as we look toward this new school year, really it will be critical for local districts to be thinking about how are they using their federal stimulus dollars?

I think it's important for all of us to keep in mind, if your child lost months of in-person learning, it won't be completed overnight.

It will take time.

And in fact, it might take two and three years.

And that's why the Biden Administration structured the stimulus dollars the way that it did so that districts have time to spend those dollars down.

It's just too much money to spend down quickly.

And so it will be important for us to think strategically as a state and in families and then in collaboration with children's teachers and principals about how we can work together as partners to address that unfinished learning.

I think another important piece will be community based organizations.

You know, there are terrific organizations out there that specialize in things like reading tutoring, that specialize in summer instruction and camps.

So camps may be re-imagined, camps that may have been fun and games and swimming all day, might have a couple of hours of reading instruction in the morning.

So and that will be important for state government to invest in over the next two years, to help community based organizations be part of the solution.

- Restrictions surrounding COVID and working in person are being lifted around the state, but each employer and employee are navigating new regulations, vaccination questions and prerequisites for work.

Will Glover talked with Tony Paris.

He's the lead attorney at the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice.

And Tony explained what employers can mandate or can't when it comes to vaccination status.

- Are employers requiring employees to get vaccinated in order to come back to work, and are they allowed to do so?

- Yeah, it's a really important topic, and they are.

We have been seeing some employers, especially in the health care field and educational fields, start to at least hint or say that they're gonna be mandating the vaccine.

In general, the main rules for all your viewers to remember is that employers are allowed generally to mandate vaccines.

This is not an unprecedented thing.

Employers and all types of sectors of the economy are allowed to do everything from mandate other vaccines, drug tests.

We are required to be vaccinated before we enter school.

So it's not unprecedented.

I think what we're seeing is different employers debating on whether or not that will help streamline or otherwise an easier transition as we reopen the economy.

And there's just two real kind of important exceptions that I think employers out there and, of course, employees should maybe be aware of.

Number one is whether or not an employee's hesitancy to get the vaccine and to return to work is tied to a disability.

If it's tied to a disability, the employer would need to go through some additional, I guess, procedures in order to see whether or not they can reasonably accommodate this individual not being vaccinated.

The other exception to the requirement that an employer can mandate vaccinations is even less, I guess, even less set in the law.

And that's whether or not a religious exemption or some other type of protection due to a bona fide religious belief prevents an employee from being vaccinated.

Even more so, your viewers and any employee out there are gonna have to then show that there's been a bona fide religious belief held that prevents you from whatever reason in being vaccinated.

- And so if a company or employer does require the vaccine, does the employer take on any responsibility or are they required to take on any of the responsibility of making sure that those employees get vaccinated, have access to vaccines or any of the other factors surrounding that?

- What I think employers are gonna start to do, we've already seen it on a certain level, even with our city of Detroit's incentives, is providing some type of incentive or otherwise saying, you know, your paid time off to get the vaccine or we will have somebody on site here to assist you in getting the vaccine.

Or, you know, we will provide some type of stipend or some type of cost reducing thing, mileage or whatever it might be, to kind of motivate or otherwise show that they are doing what they can to incentivize getting the vaccine.

Once that, of course, if it happens, either in house or directly through an employer program, that would be kind of easier to monitor or otherwise to make sure, you know, the proper records or whatever caps.

Otherwise it would probably be something where the employee would have to either bring them their vaccination proof or their vaccination card.

We get a lot of questions about HIPAA from many members and whether or not that's...

The thing to remember about HIPAA that I think is really important, is it only applies to to the health care provider.

Employers aren't necessarily bound by HIPAA.

It would mostly be whatever health care plan or physician's office is doing this vaccination.

And almost all of the folks, especially if you were vaccinated at Ford Field or at TCF, paperwork that you're signing is usually a waiver of some type.

Then your HIPAA waiver is allowed for them to keep various forms of data or otherwise let your employer know.

As long as there's a waiver there on that, they can send those records to your employer without any issue and then the employer, of course, would be able to document or otherwise prove or show that in fact, you've been vaccinated.

- And finally, as we continue to get out and about, more summer events are happening.

The Michigan Opera Theater's first performance of the season is Saturday, June 12th, outdoors at the Meadow Brook Amphitheater.

It's a unique collaboration with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

WRCJ's Peter Wharfe and Dave Wagner spoke with the team behind this exciting performance.

Take a look.

- How does it feel to be preparing to bring live performance back again to lovers of great music?

(both laughing) - Well, you know, MOT did manage to produce a live performance in October.

It was a slightly strange live performance because the audience was required to stay in their own car as they moved through the parking center.

So this is a particularly thrilling moment for us because we get to experience acoustic sound and gather together, even though we'll be socially distant and safe.

Nevertheless, to be gathered together as a community to share one piece together, having a chorus together, having a good size of MOT orchestra together, to have Yada join us from DSO, the beginning of a partnership, I hope, between DSO and MOT.

It feels like an overture to what's to come.

So I'm very excited about that.

- Why did you choose this work for your return?

What was that conversation to choose Cavalleria for this performance?

(Yuval laughing) - So we need an opera for the people.

We are going for a new renaissance after this terrible pandemic.

And Cavalleria you talk about the common people, we have verismo.

We need a lot of emotions, sensations and so we have an incredible cast.

We thought that this is the best way to start our collaboration together because we have a beautiful place, nature and we can have the right place to have our Cavalleria with nature, with a lot of real emotions.

- The Cavalleria, the story is very simple.

I mean, it is a love triangle or a couple of different love triangles.

So it is about love and betrayal and jealousy and abandonment.

It's a very violent and turbulent story but as a background to all of that is the incredible piece of the Sicilian landscape.

And the opera always goes back to this kind of nature, this world of nature.

- How was this also a first for the Michigan Opera Theater and Detroit Symphony Orchestra together?

- Even though Cavalleria is a masterpiece, this is the first time that MOT is producing Cavalleria and performing it.

So that's an exciting first.

It's very exciting that we have a music director from DSO conducting the MOT Orchestra and also for Christine Goerke, this is her role debut as Santutsa.

- Well, the match, it's gonna happen here on June 12th.

And this is something very special.

Here we are at the Meadow Brook Music Festival.

So looking forward to this performance because it's a unique collaboration.

- There is such an abundance of incredible art in Detroit, and it seems completely natural for us to reach across the aisle and work with each other.

And Maestro Bignamini, absolutely loves opera.

So we are beyond overjoyed that he's a part of this project and is the first time I've had the honor of working with him so I can't wait myself.

I think it's a wonderful way to reach different audiences and it's a way to grow what we do.

You know, I mean, look at this.

We are here for the first time.

We are creating collaborations with the DSO.

And I'd like to see this company continue to create collaborations with other arts organizations in the area.

And I feel like people are going to be anxious to be able to embrace art closer to home.

- Yuval, one of your passions is to take music, to take opera out of the opera house and bring it to surprising and unusual and creative locations.

How does a place like this inspire you to think about those ideas and what you might do with Michigan Opera Theater in the coming months?

- That's kind of an overture to some of the plans for Michigan Opera Theater.

It's really wonderful to be in a setting like this.

I mean, it really was this environment that I could hear the music of Cavalleria.

This environment really speaks to the environment of the opera, I think in really powerful ways.

And I would love to invite our audience to experience opera in unfamiliar terrain, to help understand that opera can be really close to everyday life.

- The important thing that I think that we have to give to our audience, both.

Not just the not just the opera but all of the kind of music, and we have to give them emotions and music, emotion through the music.

So people need the symphonic, opera, contemporary, classical, bel canto, verismo.

Everything is different emotion.

But the important thing is to make people maybe happier, but surely more sensitive.

- And for more on the performance, June 12th, just head to our website @onedetroitpbs.org.

That is gonna do it for me, have a great weekend and we will see you next time for "One Detroit".

Take care and be well.

You can find more at onedetroitpbs.org, or subscribe to our social media channels and sign up for our "One Detroit" newsletter.