Hawaii public school teacher absences eased slightly this week but were still higher than before the current surge of COVID-19.
The daily average of calls for substitute teachers this week was 1,604, according to data released Friday by the state Department of Education. That was down 12% from the week of Jan. 10, when the daily average of calls for substitutes was 1,830, spiking Jan. 14 at 2,159.
Not all the absences are for teachers who are sick with COVID-19 or quarantining. About half have been sick calls, while the other half typically have been for other reasons, such as family leave and vacation, state schools interim Superintendent Keith Hayashi has said.
With unusually high numbers of teachers out, schools have had to scramble to find enough substitute teachers and cover classes. In many cases, students have been temporarily supervised by other teachers or nonteaching school staff such as security guards and counselors, or grouped in cafeterias and auditoriums.
Teachers and parents have voiced worry that students have been losing precious classroom time when assessments have shown the pandemic has already caused significant learning loss.
Hawaii State Teachers Association President Osa Tui Jr. said he hopes the latest numbers are a sign the state is moving past the worst of staff and student absences brought on by the surge of the cases caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. But he reiterated his call for the state to provide stronger safety measures and more proactive planning for the schools.
“Teachers and communities rightfully expect plans to be in place and shared so that schools are not caught unprepared if and when the next variant comes along,” Tui said.
Friday saw the highest number of the week for calls for substitutes at 1,737. The other days were in the 1,500s and 1,600s.
By comparison, in early December, before the omicron surge descended on the islands, 1,300 calls for substitutes was typical, a DOE spokeswoman said.
The state remains short hundreds of the substitute teachers needed to cover the call-outs.
This week 274 substitute jobs per day went unfilled on average. Still, that was down 34% from the week of Jan. 10, when there were 416 jobs per day unfilled on average, according to DOE.
The omicron surge has hit both student and school employee attendance hard, locally and nationally.
A separate DOE report this week revealed how student absences have risen dramatically during the omicron surge, with many schools reporting absentee rates in the Jan. 4-7 period that were two to four times higher than pre-pandemic levels, and some schools reporting almost one-third of their students out.
Since the start of the new semester, widespread cases and staff absences have compelled four schools — Waianae Intermediate, Sunset Beach Elementary, Haiku Elementary on Maui and Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School on Kauai — to switch briefly to virtual learning.
On Hawaii island, dozens of bus routes have been canceled because a chronic shortage of bus drivers has been worsened by the omicron surge, leaving families desperately hunting for alternate ways to get students to school.
Nationwide, there were 7,030 pandemic-related school disruptions in the Jan. 10 school week, the highest number by far in almost a year and a half, as reported by the school tracker Burbio. This week the disruptions fell to less than half, at 3,430. A school disruption is defined as a school’s moving away from regular in-person instruction for pandemic- related reasons.
