Schools struggle solving staffing shortages

There are a lot of changing hats at local schools, and it’s just one way leaders are putting a bandaid on an unprecedented problem.

Three years into being an assistant principal at Whiteland Community High School, Duke Lines found himself in a kindergarten classroom teaching a group of five year olds. He didn’t know it was going to happen until the day before, when officials at Clark-Pleasant schools realized the sheer volume of staff absences — worsened by the pandemic’s latest omicron surge — was too much to overcome if all schools remained in person. Its resources were stretched thin.

So on Jan. 14, Whiteland Community High School went virtual. They returned to classrooms the following week. Staff members, including assistant principals, instructional coaches and secretaries from the high school filled in at the elementary schools and Clark-Pleasant Middle School. Keeping the elementary schools open was key to making sure parents weren’t scrambling to find childcare options, Lines said.

The one-day closure of the high school is the most extreme example of the staff shortage at Clark-Pleasant schools, but school leaders have been scrambling to keep kids in schools all since they returned from winter break.

“We’ve had to adapt and be collaborative and innovative and consider what we can and cannot control,” Lines said. “It’s been a team effort in our building. A lot of times we utilized classroom teachers who cover during their planning time. We also use instructional assistants and coaches, who have covered classes during that time. There’s a sub shortage across the state and country, and when you look at the rise of COVID numbers with omicron … it’s not something we knew would happen.”

Throughout the county, staff members have been asked to fill in for full-time classroom teachers who were out sick in January. But the issue isn’t just local. As the United States grapples with the most significant surge of COVID-19 yet, some of the nation’s largest school districts, from Atlanta to Detroit to Milwaukee, have shifted to online learning on occasion due to staff shortages.

The shortage of teachers, along with transportation personnel, food service workers and custodial staff, has caused half of the county’s school districts to go virtual for at least a day, with Edinburgh schools facing a much longer hiatus at its middle and high schools.

Students at Edinburgh Middle School and Edinburgh Community High School last set foot in a classroom Jan. 18, and may not return before February, as the district’s cafeteria and custodial departments had at least half of their employees out due to COVID-19 before those schools went virtual, superintendent Ron Ross said.

“Everyone has pitched (in) and gone above and beyond to serve our students,” Ross said. “Unfortunately, cases are continuing to climb and we are running out of healthy people to fill in. This is why we made the difficult decision to transition to virtual learning at the middle/high school building.”

The same day Whiteland Community High School went virtual, students in fifth through 12th grades at Franklin schools made the switch, too, also returning to the classroom the day after the three-day Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. The change affected students at Custer Baker Intermediate School, Franklin Community Middle School and Franklin Community High School.

As was the case at schools in Edinburgh and Whiteland, it was a culmination of resources stretched thin, said Jeff Sewell, Franklin’s operations director.

“We have absences in a lot of different areas. It varies from day to day,” Sewell said. “One of the reasons we had the virtual day, it allowed us to take some of the assistants and people not directly engaged with students in virtual learning to support elementary schools that were still in person.”

One of the areas of greatest need is transportation. When there aren’t enough bus drivers, any other employees with a commercial driver’s license will fill in to transport students to and from school. At Franklin schools, that means mechanics and the transportation director take on routes. When that isn’t enough, buses double up on routes, and that means some routes will run as much as an hour behind schedule. In those cases, students are excused for being late, Sewell said.

The staffing shortages have also caused educators to get creative in the classroom. Franklin Community Middle School CARES Act assistant Tony Ressino was hired to occasionally fill in for a class, but also help the school’s front office with any needs, such as helping teachers by printing and copying packets. But right now, his primary responsibility is filling in for absent teachers. When Franklin Middle School went virtual earlier this month, he subbed at Union Elementary School, he said.

“Usually I’ll be in a classroom three days a week, it depends on the week. This week, I’ve been in the classroom every day,” Ressino said last week. “A lot of people are having to be out because they’re quarantined. It’s tough to get subs.”

During the past two weeks at Franklin schools, about 28 teachers have been absent, more than 10% of the total teaching staff. At Clark-Pleasant schools, when Whiteland Community High School went virtual Jan. 14, 82 staff members were out, according to data from the districts.

Center Grove, Greenwood and Indian Creek schools haven’t had any virtual days this year, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t feeling the impact of the shortages, too. Center Grove schools is utilizing unorthodox measures to cover gaps, just as other districts are, superintendent Rich Arkanoff said.

“Our central office staff, we’ve been wherever we can covering for administrators and teachers if need be. Mechanics and other folks have been driving buses,” Arkanoff said. “One day it’ll look bad and one day not so bad. I wouldn’t say we’re seeing a trend towards anything. One day there will be an increase and then a decrease (in absences).”

Indian Creek has weathered the storm so far, with just six staff absences due to COVID-19, spokesperson Katherine Taylor said.

At Greenwood schools, an already existent sub shortage has been exacerbated by the omicron surge, causing each school’s front office to improvise with other employees. While luck of the draw may be responsible for Greenwood schools not having to go virtual, part of avoiding outbreaks depends on good decision-making, superintendent Terry Terhune said.

“We’re really thankful that when people aren’t feeling well, they don’t come to school and make other people sick,” Terhune said. “Families and staff have been really good about that, and it helped us in a lot of cases. People have been really good about trying to schedule routine things where they don’t have to miss as much work, dentist appointments and those types of things. We had times where people were out, but it has not hit us all on the same day as with neighboring districts.”