Most districts work to cover substitute shortages through internal adjustments.
“With substitute teacher shortages, we make every effort to find substitutes, cover classes internally, or to have another adult in the room while a teacher who is in quarantine teaches remotely,” said Clark-Shawnee Superintendent Brian Kuhn.
Northeastern Local School District also said while a teacher is in quarantine, they have another adult in the classroom for that teacher to teach virtually.
“For teachers in quarantine, some can teach remotely from home with another adult in the room at school to provide supervision. We may, in some cases, be able to split students up between other teachers,” said Superintendent John Kronour.
Kronour said if they can’t make it with solutions such as teachers in quarantine teaching virtually or covering classes internally, they will look into virtual learning as an option.
Both Northwestern Local Schools and Urbana City Schools made the move to virtual learning through November due to substitute shortages, staff absences and quarantines. Northeastern is back to in-person learning and Urbana was using hybrid learning as of Monday.
Instead of going virtual, some schools plan to use calamity/digital days when there are substitute shortages.
“If there are not enough substitutes we would need to implement either a calamity day for a short period of time or, similar to what is currently being done at our high school, we would go to a remote instruction format for a period of time,” said Urbana City Schools Superintendent Charlies Thiel.
Greenon, Clark-Shawnee, Southeastern Local School District and Urbana City Schools said they have had substitutes decide not to teach this year due to the pandemic.
“We’ve had a few substitutes who worked for us in the past express that they are not substituting this year due to the pandemic,” said Greenon Superintendent Darrin Knapke.
A once reliable pool of substitute teachers are unavailable to superintendents due toe the coronavirus.
“For teaching substitutes, some of our substitutes in the past have been retired teachers, who may be choosing to forego substitute teaching this year due to the circumstances,” said Clark-Shawnee Superintendent Brian Kuhn.
Most school districts are also experiencing a bus driver shortage as well due to COVID-19 and staff absences.
If schools don’t have enough bus drivers, some districts may have to adjust or combine routes.
“If we don’t have enough sub bus drivers, we may have to split the students on the route into two groups to be dropped off by two buses that are running that day,” said Northeastern Superintendent John Kronour.
Springfield’s Superintendent Bob Hill echoed Kronour, saying they also would have to adjust routes.
“Our transportation drivers adjust their routes daily to accommodate other drivers when they are off sick or for other reasons,” Hill said.
Extensive training required for bus drivers is also contributing to the shortage, some districts said.
“Driving a school bus is a challenging job with atypical hours… Our drivers cover morning and afternoon routes with a break in between during the school day,” said Kuhn. “Additionally, there is special training and driver certification required in order to drive a school bus. This is not a job where someone can just walk in and begin work immediately.”
Triad Local School District Superintendent Vickie Hoffman echoed the concerns of her Clark-Shawnee counterpart. Keeping bus drivers is challenging.
“Districts want experienced drivers to drive routes, but even after training drivers do not have that experience yet,’' Hoffman said. “This means that drivers often need to sub for a while before getting a full-time job.’'
It’s also difficult for bus drivers to work enough to accumulate 40 hours a week and this presents another obstacle, said Hoffman.
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