COVID cases, staffing issues and burnout led to school closures this year

Many schools and even entire districts have closed for days during the pandemic.

New nationwide numbers show these closures may have been caused by more than spikes in COVID-19 cases at schools.

“We do not have enough teachers or bus drivers. We do not have enough counselors or nurses,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association. “Many of our educators will go in on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, another teacher has retired.”

All factors forced some schools and even entire districts to close for days at a time.

“You’ve got this cascading effect, where even a small percentage 5-10-15% of staff being out can create too much work for the existing staff to actually keep schools open,” said Dennis Roach, president of Burbio.com, a data service that aggregates school and community calendars nationwide.

The company shows school closures occurred in a few waves. First, in August because of COVID-19 cases and quarantine policies and then two major closures in November were driven by mental health burnout and staff shortages.

Now the latest round of closures come as omicron cases surge.

For schools that remain open despite staff shortages, the National Education Association says many teachers are covering extra classes.

“They already are working in overcrowded classrooms and now they’re having the responsibility of taking on sometimes as many as 80 students,” said Pringle. “This is not something that is sustainable.”

Burbio.com reports some school closures are proactively scheduling full virtual days to manage staffing issues. Additional data shows some school closures earlier this year were also proactive – for example, some districts closed a few days before or after a holiday to give teachers and students some extra time off.

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