Texas teachers are facing down COVID, staff shortages with courage and heroism

Many industries have been hit hard by the pandemic — healthcare, service, retail. Schools have struggled, too, and the relentless wave of the omicron variant has many campuses on the brink.

The Fort Worth ISD has more staffers out of work because of COVID-19 or exposure since August, the Star-Telegram reported. As of Jan. 11, FWISD had “398 unfilled teacher positions — about 7% of all 5,362 teacher positions — for both COVID-19 and other-related reasons,” spokeswoman Claudia Garibay said.

The problem for schools is the cumulative effect of illness and exposure to COVID-19. There are only so many substitute teachers to bring in. More than 10 percent of the district’s employees had been quarantined since Jan. 1 and nearly 6 percent of all staff members have tested positive for COVID-19.

We probably don’t think of our teachers as warriors, but they really have been — and continue to be — as we struggle to adjust to the different effects of COVID-19 variants. Only a handful of states have taken a hard stance against school closures. We’re proud to say Texas is one of them and we have urged that schools stay open since it became clear early in the pandemic that virtual learning was a disaster for children. We know this has helped quell the national tide of learning loss.

You can be sure that having fewer teachers available to teach is affecting classroom sizes and the way students learn now, too. So, all of us have to consider, as districts combine classrooms or have students do homework in large lecture halls rather than in a classroom with active instruction, whether keeping schools open is the right thing to do.

Mansfield ISD announced it will temporarily close six elementary schools from Thursday, Jan. 13, through Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 17. And Boyd ISD, just north of Azle, canceled school Wednesday through Monday for deep cleaning. There will be no virtual classes. School is set to resume as normal next Tuesday.

Public schools are deeply intertwined with our communities. For most families, they are at the center of daily life. Many parents depend on them to help feed and occupy children so they can work.

For some students, schools are the primary place they receive nourishment. In 2020, 3.65 million Texas students were eligible for free or reduced-price school meals, according to the Texas Department of Agriculture. Many students still lack access to broadband connectivity that’s increasingly necessary for learning, too.

If COVID-19 cases begin to overwhelm school districts, temporarily canceling classes allowing for teachers, administrators, and students to recover, might make sense. Time will tell if a brief closure allows enough time for healing or if the vicious cycle simply continues.

For now, because of the great need for children to receive consistent, in-person learning via the classroom, and the ancillary community concerns, we still think schools should remain open and operating as best they can. At some point, hopefully soon, the spread will lessen and schools can catch up and catch their breath.

These are difficult decisions for administrators. Some parents are bound to insist on having kids on campus no matter what — others will demand the highest of caution during the worst of the omicron wave.

So, we applaud our teachers and administrators for continuing to teach the best they can as illness spreads. To those doing the work of several colleagues, risking their own health to make some level of learning possible, we say: You are heroes, and your efforts do not go unnoticed.

This story was originally published January 13, 2022 at 5:08 AM.