Schools struggle to stay open as quarantines sideline staff
COLUMBUS (AP) — The infection of a single cafeteria worker was all it took to close classrooms in the small Lowellville school district in northeastern Ohio, forcing at least two weeks of remote learning.
Not only did the worker who tested positive for the coronavirus need to quarantine, but so did the entire cafeteria staff and most of the transportation crew, because some employees work on both. The district of about 500 students sharing one building had resumed in-person instruction with masks and social distancing and avoided any student infections. But without enough substitute workers, administrators had no choice but to temporarily abandon classroom operations and meal services.
“It boils down to the staff,” Lowellville Superintendent Geno Thomas said. “If you can’t staff a school, you have to bring it to remote.”
Around the country, contact tracing and isolation protocols are sidelining school employees and closing school buildings. The staffing challenges force students out of classrooms, even in districts where officials say the health risks of in-person learning are manageable. And the absences add to the strain from a wave of early retirements and leaves taken by employees worried about health risks.
It’s another layer of the “tremendous stress” faced by administrators and educators navigating the pandemic, said Dan Domenech, executive director of AASA, the nation’s leading school superintendents association.
The superintendent in Groton, Connecticut, recently announced the entire district would transition to distance learning for two weeks following Thanksgiving — a decision driven primarily by a staffing shortage.
“When you have the wrong teacher, like an art teacher who over a two-day period sees as many as 80 children, you’ve got the possibility of a really significant number of contacts,” he said. “It’s not being transmitted in schools apparently, but we have lots of cases of children and staff members who are getting it very typically from a family member.”
In Kansas, the 27,000-student Shawnee Mis
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sion School District announced recently that middle and high school students would return to remote learning until January because of difficulty keeping buildings staffed. Scores of employees are quarantined because of known or potential exposure.
“It is important to emphasize that this decision is not being made because of COVID-19 transmission within our schools,” Superintendent Mike Fulton wrote to families. He said available substitute teachers would be shifted to elementary schools to keep up in-person learning for younger students.