Hamden High School closed Tuesday due to staff shortage

HAMDEN — With 19 teachers absent, Hamden High School was unable to remain open Tuesday, according to Superintendent of Schools Jody Goeler.

It was not the first time this week Hamden shuttered a school due to lack of staff. Hamden Middle School and the Hamden Collaborative Learning Center also were closed Monday.

The district is one of many statewide coping with staffing shortages due to the growing number of COVID-19 cases and exposures over the holidays.

Both the middle school and the HCLC reopened Tuesday, Goeler said.

But the high school was the next to close.

“You already have (on Monday) the high school principal covering six classes to make it work,” Goeler said. “I can’t ask ... from my high school principal and my high school administration to cover more, to restructure the day more, to reschedule more than they are at this point. They’re doing absolutely everything they can do to keep the schools open.”

The high school was short 17 teachers Monday, according to Goeler, who said administrators like Principal Nadine Gannon jumped in to cover classes for them.

That became too difficult Tuesday, when two additional teachers called out of work, Goeler said. Two security guards and four pupil services staff also were absent, he said.

The closure is the latest development in a tumultuous school year.

Possible threats of violence early last month prompted officials to close the school for three days and implement new security measures, including walk-through metal detectors.

That trend does not appear to be over. An Instagram post Monday afternoon made another threat against the high school.

But Tuesday’s closure was unrelated to the threat, according to Goeler, who said the district had planned to remain open with police on site — until teacher absences became unsustainable.

Meanwhile, student absences are double or triple normal levels, Goeler said.

At “one school half of the students could be out, another school a quarter of the students could be out, but our absentee levels are up significantly,” he said.

The pattern of absences has disrupted learning, according to David Abate, president of the Hamden Education Association, the town’s teachers union.

Abate teaches science at the high school.

While “the administration has been doing, I think, a really good job through this whole pandemic,” Abate said, the year’s challenges — both school threats and COVID — take their toll.

“There’s no continuity. It’s either the teachers are out or the students are out,” he said. “We haven’t had a solid week of school in quite some time, you know. As I said before, having that continuity is important.”

For teachers with limited sick time, COVID poses another problem.

“A lot of teachers are new and they don’t have a lot of sick time to use,” Abate said, noting the problem can be particularly acute for women who have taken days off due to pregnancy. “Now they have to go without pay.”

Unless staff members can prove they contracted COVID-19 at work, he said, they are not reimbursed for the time.

Abate thinks remote learning — an option that requires state authorization — should be on the table as a short-term alternative.

But Gov. Ned Lamont reiterated Tuesday that the state will not make broad remote learning an option. He is committed to keeping schools open, he said.

While Abate dislikes remote learning, he said, it could help schools “get through the peak” and provide some continuity. There may also be students who are well enough to join virtual calls but unable to attend in-person classes, he said.

For every day the school is closed, the district must add a make-up day at the end of the year — up to the last day of June — or during April vacation.

The high school has added four make-up days, according to Abate, who said the last day of school currently is scheduled for June 15. The original release date was June 9, he said.

If that date extends to June 24, Goeler said, the district will begin making up days during April vacation.

In late June, it becomes difficult to have “valuable instructional time,” Goeler said.

“And then you have high school graduations and people planning their summer vacations ... so we didn’t wanna take it to the last week of June,” he said.

As of Tuesday morning, he did not want to have remote learning as an option, though he noted his opinion could change as the situation develops.

“We know that the best place for our students is in schools, and if not having a remote option forces us to consider every option ... to keep our kids in school, I think that’s a reasonable pursuit at this point,” he said.

Goeler was unsure whether the high school would reopen Wednesday.

“We’re really taking it day-to-day at this point,” he said, adding that administrators were exploring potential schedule changes to ease staffing shortages.

“We’re all doing the best we can,” said Abate. “We come in every day with a smile on our face, and we are here to do the best job we can to teach our students. This is — it’s just throwing a monkey wrench into the whole scenario.”

“Nobody wants to close. Nobody wants a day off,” he said.