Vermont Business Magazine On Friday, 16 school districts covering Addison, Chittenden, Franklin, and Grand Isle Counties who are members of the Champlain Valley Superintendents Association (CVSA), announced that while they are committed to bringing elementary students back to four or five days per week of in-person learning, they face serious and varied challenges due to a lack of staffing.
“In education, we often just figure out how to make things work in the best interest of students even though our systems cannot necessarily sustain these choices and it causes significant organizational stress,” said Winooski School District (WSD) Superintendent Sean McMannon.
The forecasted challenges are numerous given that districts are stretched very thin, with a number of teaching and staff positions currently open. This puts districts in a precarious position that could result in in-person learning days being reduced and/or scaled back from their current models.
If staffing levels continue to drop as a result of staff quarantining, either due to holiday travel (which is being cautioned against given the current guidance and travel map from the Vermont Department of Health), contracting COVID, or having close contact with a COVID positive individual, districts may not be able to continue conducting in-person instruction.
The total number of unfilled positions needed to keep schools across the region fully staffed is estimated to be at around 100.
The Department of Labor website reports that Vermont’s September 2020 unemployment rate was 4.2%. The CVSA strongly encourages Vermonters looking for meaningful, steady employment to consider applying to work as support staff in the public education system.
“The best part of my job is working with the students. I’m excited about going to work every day. Every day is different -- but at the end of the day I know I'm making a difference in the life of a child,” said Bernadette Toth, who has been an Instructional Assistant in the Winooski School District for eight years.
If the current positions are not filled, there might be delays in bringing elementary students back to increased in-person instruction. Or, for some districts, bringing students back to school for increased in-person days might not be possible at all.
“We have been so singularly focused since last June on bringing our students back for in-person instruction, whether that be two days a week, four days a week, or five days a week, depending on local circumstances. We’ve operated all along with the notion that keeping our students and staff safe and healthy was our top priority, and if we could do that, we’d be able to increase the number of in-person student days. Now we’re confronted with the reality that we may not have adequate staffing to bring our students back. It is heartbreaking all around,” said Champlain Valley School District Superintendent Elaine Pinckney.
Source: October, 23, 2020 - Champlain Valley Superintendents Association