Hawaii Public School Teacher Absences Decline Slightly But Remain High

Hawaii public school teacher absences declined slightly this week, but were still higher than before the current COVID-19 outbreak.

The average daily call 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 January 10, when the daily average for replacement calls was 1,830, peaking on January 14 at 2,159.

Not all absences are for teachers who are sick with COVID-19 or in quarantine. About half were sick calls, while the other half were usually for other reasons, such as family leaves and vacations, said acting superintendent of public schools Keith Hayashi.

With an unusually high number of absentee teachers, schools have had to scramble to find enough substitute teachers to cover classes. In many cases, students were temporarily supervised by other teachers or non-teaching school staff, such as security guards and counselors, or huddled together in cafeterias and auditoriums.

Teachers and parents have expressed concern that students are wasting valuable class time as 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 caused by the surge in cases caused by the omicron variant of the coronavirus. But he reiterated his call for the state to put in place tougher safety measures and more proactive planning for schools.

“Teachers and communities rightly expect plans to be in place and shared so that schools aren’t caught off guard if and when the next variation comes along,” Tui said.

Friday saw the highest number of the week for substitute calls at 1,737. Other days were in the 1500s and 1600s.

By comparison, in early December, before the omicron wave descended on the islands, 1,300 surrogate calls were typical, a DOE spokeswoman said.

The state is still short of hundreds of substitute teachers needed to cover calls.

This week, 274 replacement jobs per day were not filled on average. Still, that was down 34% from the week of Jan. 10, when there were an average of 416 unfilled jobs per day, according to the DOE.

The omicron surge has hit student and school employee attendance hard, locally and nationally.

A separate DOE report this week revealed how student absences increased dramatically during the omicron surge, with many schools reporting absenteeism rates during the January 4-7 period that were two at four times higher than pre-pandemic levels, and some schools reporting almost a third of their students.

Since the start of the new semester, widespread cases and staff absences forced four schools — Waianae Intermediate, Sunset Beach Elementary, Haiku Elementary in Maui and Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School in Kauai — to briefly transition to virtual learning.

On the island of Hawaii, dozens of bus routes have been canceled due to a chronic shortage of bus drivers made worse by the surge in omicron, leaving families desperate for other ways to get around. bring students to school.

Nationwide, there were 7,030 pandemic-related school disruptions during the Jan. 10 school week, the highest number by far in nearly a year and a half, as reported by the tracker school Burbio. This week, disruptions fell to less than half, to 3,430. A school disruption is defined as a school moving away from regular in-person instruction for pandemic-related reasons.