COVID-19 causes massive teacher shortages
LSHS struggles to fill gaps left by staff who are out sick
A report by the Washington State Department of Health states that 91 COVID-19 outbreaks and 1,519 COVID cases occurred in Snohomish County K-12 schools between Aug. 1 and Nov. 31, 2021. According to data from the Washington Department of Health, 60.2% of people aged 16-17 have been fully vaccinated, while 51.8% of people aged 12-15 have been fully vaccinated. “My sister’s like college and stuff went online for a few weeks, so [going online] it’s not like out of the picture. I don’t think we would go full year, but I feel like temporarily would probably be pretty likely,” junior Jake Loucado said.
The Omicron variant of COVID-19 is causing schools to have major difficulties with in-person learning, as many students and staff are having to quarantine as a result.
The major factor that affects whether schools are able to stay open is how many teachers and staff members are out sick, and whether substitutes can be found for those staff members. If the school can’t find people to teach certain classes, the school wouldn’t be able to stay open.
“I have had some of my friends say that the teachers don’t come to school for like two weeks and they don’t really say why, but it’s most likely they get sick and have to stay home,” senior Ulises Martinez said.
Another concern for the district is finding substitute bus drivers for drivers that are sick with COVID. Without bus drivers, students who are healthy wouldn’t be able to come to school.
“You get the emails that bus routes are being canceled. And then some parents are also scared to send their kids to school when they find out or hear about when teachers are sick,” Martinez said.
It is not uncommon now for one or two bus routes to be temporarily canceled due to driver shortages, and this combined with the number of students, teachers and other staff members who have been gone recently due to COVID, makes switching to online school, even temporarily, a real possibility.
This could have a negative impact on students, since an abrupt transition to online learning may be jarring.
“Yeah, probably just like be a repeat of my freshman year, which when we, we just got pulled out of like class, and never came back really, so it’s gonna be like kinda difficult to like, readjust to online again after being back for like six months,” junior Jake Loucado said.
While the school is doing everything it can to avoid a return to distance learning, increased absences among teachers may not leave the district any choice but to temporarily move school back online.
“If we’re talking about going like you know, like doing distance learning, I would say it’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” junior Shane Racine said.
