Quote:
Originally Posted by CliffFletcher
For instance, we should prepare contingencies to keep schools open even when 25 per cent of teachers are absent.
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What does that look like for you?
In my division we faced staff shortages across all types of staff, not just teachers.
For example, we had 25% bus driver shortages and kids couldn't even get to the school. Over 90% of our kids were bussed, so when we couldn't get drivers, we basically lost a giant chunk of the school.
We also had to tell the kids in our "Life Skills" room to stay home for a few days here and there because we had massive shortages due to Educational Assistants being out with Covid. Some of our Life Skills kids are high needs and require 1 to 1 support for school/their own safety, so if we didn't have the staff we couldn't have them in the building.
We also struggled to get subs for teachers because many subs are older and retired teachers, so they weren't too keen on going into a classroom at that time.
A few times we had to close our cafeteria because the staff for it were out. While this wasn't a huge deal because kids can bring food from home, it still hit hard for some kids who relied on it.
Any school shutdowns in 2021 or 2022 were focused on these issues. The government would extend Christmas Break by 2 weeks or something. This wasn't done to keep kids safe. It was done, so school staff could all get over their Covid isolation/sickness and get back to work. They basically gave us all a period of isolation so schools could reset and get all staff back.
I honestly don't know the solutions to running schools when you have major staff shortages. Any idea I can come up with in my mind would severely impact student learning and that leads to "why are we even doing this"?