COVID surge causes rash of teacher, student absences at SLO County schools
The surge in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant is hitting San Luis Obispo County schools hard, forcing teachers and students to stay home sick at high rates and for longer periods of time than normal illnesses.
On top of an already-stressed workforce, widespread infection and exposure to COVID-19 also mean school districts have run out of available substitute teachers — leaving them to ask other teachers to give up their planning periods to cover a class, or principals and district administrators to step in.
And school nursing staffs have their hands full tracking hundreds of students who are quarantining or isolating.
Already, Shandon Elementary and High School in northeastern San Luis Obispo County are transitioning to independent study due to “multiple COVID-related absences for both staff and students,” Shandon Joint Unified School District Superintendent Kristin Benson wrote in a press release Wednesday afternoon.
The two schools, which have a total of about 275 students, will be in the online teaching format beginning on Jan. 14 with a return to in person scheduled for Jan. 31, Benson wrote. The district’s Parkfield Elementary School campus will remain in person.
The big increase in student and teacher absences doesn’t surprise school officials.
“After a vacation, holidays, gathering, we are expecting this, we expected this coming back,” Ashley Aiello, the Paso Robles Joint Unified School District nurse, said during a Tuesday evening board meeting.
In just the first week of being back to school, four of San Luis Obispo County’s largest school districts — Atascadero, Paso Robles, San Luis Coastal and Templeton — have reported a total of 372 student and 102 employee cases of COVID-19. Lucia Mar, the largest district in the county, has not yet released COVID-19 data in the new year.
During non-pandemic times, most local districts have a student attendance rate of about 90-95%. Now, they are starting the new year with attendance rates in the 80-85% range, according to data provided to The Tribune.
All students who contract COVID-19 are required by the California Department of Public Health to isolate for 10 days, meaning confine themselves to a sick room separated from others in the household. Unvaccinated students exposed to the virus must quarantine for 10 days, while vaccinated students do not need to quarantine. Quarantined people must stay home but don’t have to be confined to a single room.
More testing means more positive COVID cases
School officials noted that a big reason they’re seeing so many positive cases right now is that they gave out thousands of home COVID-19 rapid test kits before or during the first week of school after the winter break. The home test kits were provided by the state to “keep kids safe and keep schools open,” Gov. Gavin Newsom announced in late December.
“This increase (in COVID-19 cases), yes, is because of omicron,” Aiello said during the Paso Robles board meeting. “But also, we have passed out tests. So, people are testing. We want this, we want people to report their positive (results). ... We are keeping those kids that could potentially be spreading it in the classroom, home.”
Staff at local schools who test positive for COVID-19 are required to isolate for five days, following guidelines from Cal/OSHA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. After those five days have passed, employees can return to work if they receive a negative COVID-19 test result, otherwise, they need to isolate for the full 10 days.
The shorter isolation period means that teachers who recover quickly can be out of the classroom for just a few days.
Districts have run out of substitute teachers
Regardless, districts are still facing issues backfilling for sick teachers.
For example, up to about 10% of the 450 teachers at San Luis Coastal Unified School District have been out this week, according to Dan Block, the district’s director of human resources. Not all of those absences are due to COVID-19, Block noted.
Paso Robles Joint Unified School District has averaged about 90 to 100 staff members out daily since the new year — which is about 35 higher than normal, according to Jen Gaviola, the district’s deputy superintendent.
“There’s always not been enough subs,” said Cody King, the Lucia Mar Unified Teachers Association president. “But COVID has certainly exacerbated everything.”
King said the last big surge in COVID-19 cases in San Luis Obispo County came last winter, while schools were still primarily in virtual learning modalities. Some teachers who got sick still felt well enough to continue teaching in the online format while they were isolated or quarantined from others, he said.
Flush with government COVID-19 relief funds distributed over the past year and in an attempt to assuage their staffing woes, local school officials spent the summer of 2021 fervently hiring dozens of teachers, and some districts raised the substitute pay rate.
“We’re actually feeling pretty good right now compared to what we’ve gone through in the past,” said Jennifer Handy, assistant superintendent of human resources at Lucia Mar Unified School District.
On average, Lucia Mar schools may have 55 teachers out for illnesses, vacation or other reasons, Handy said. Typically about 10 of those positions go unfilled by substitute teachers, Handy added, meaning another teacher must take time out of their planning period to cover the class, or a school principal or district administrator must fill in.
As of Tuesday, 53 teachers were out, she said.
At the Paso Robles school district, they face a similar problem and are typically short about five to 10 substitute teachers every day, according to Gaviola.
Local schools remain vigilant in mandating the use of face masks while indoors, disinfecting high-traffic areas between use, equipping buildings with better ventilation and educating young students on the importance of good hygiene to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“We do these things because children must stay in school; in-person learning must happen,” Gaviola said during a Paso Robles Tuesday evening school board meeting.
