NGX eds’ note: MSAD 15 superintendent Craig King is one of several area school leaders interviewed in this Press Herald article.
| Rachel Ohm, Press Herald |
As more teachers and staff quarantine because of coronavirus exposure, school districts are struggling to find enough substitutes to keep buildings open for in-person learning.
Some Maine schools are being forced into remote learning because of staffing shortages created by the increasing number of teachers, bus drivers and custodians ending up in quarantine after potential exposure to the coronavirus.
School Administrative District 51, which includes Cumberland and North Yarmouth, transitioned to remote learning for the entire district Tuesday after two employees in facilities and transportation tested positive for COVID-19 late Monday, sending 16 people into 10-day quarantines.
“We didn’t have enough bus drivers available this morning to drive and we didn’t have enough custodians to clean our facilities, which is obviously a safety issue during COVID,” Superintendent Jeff Porter said.
Schools around the state face similar problems as cases rise and the number of students and staff in quarantine increases. As of Thursday, there were 338 confirmed or probable cases of COVID-19 in Maine schools reported over the last 30 days and more than two dozen open outbreak investigations. School district leaders acknowledge that being able to offer some in-person learning is best for students and are concerned that having enough adults to run schools could soon become a major problem even though transmission in schools has been low.
“Unfortunately, we are hearing that as the COVID-19 cases are rising across our state, our schools are being increasingly impacted,” Kelli Deveaux, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Education, said in an email. “This includes an increase in the number of staff who need to quarantine, exacerbating already strained staffing shortages.”
In School Administrative District 15, which includes Gray and New Gloucester, the district shut down its high school for four days around Thanksgiving after quarantines created a shortage of teachers and support staff. While all schools are currently open, Superintendent Craig King said staffing remains a concern.
“We do have numerous students and teachers with either a diagnosis or who are being quarantined because of possible exposure,” King said. “Our schools are functioning, but if we have many more teachers who are unable to teach we may have to close one or more schools. I think that’s a challenge facing all schools, is having enough adults in the building to make the building function.”
King said absenteeism has not been a problem, but quarantines are forcing large numbers of staff, mostly teachers, to work from home. Exacerbating the problem is the difficulty in finding and attracting substitutes. King said the district raised the pay for substitute teachers by about $20, to $125 per day, but it has still been a challenge to find enough substitutes.
“Some of our substitutes were retired people,” he said. “They worked a full career and like to work two or three days as a sub. Some of those people are senior citizens now and they’ve chosen to stay out of the school buildings, so it’s reduced the number of substitutes we have.”
In Yarmouth, only one school, Yarmouth High School, has had to close due to a staffing shortage that lasted two days. But Superintendent Andrew Dolloff said administrators, teachers and support staff have put in extra effort to cover for others who are absent in light of struggles to find substitutes. The district normally has a list of about 100 substitutes, but nearly every person on the list last year declined to be on it this year due to the pandemic, Dolloff said.
