Aberdeen School District (ASD) will return to in-classroom learning on Tuesday, Jan. 25, as was announced on Monday, Jan. 10, when the district had to shift to two weeks of remote learning.
Alicia Henderson, superintendent of the district, said the district has taken steps to make sure its students and staff have a safe return.
“We have worked on ensuring all of our critical staff positions are filled, even if we have a high number of staff absences,” Henderson said.
She said the district has a plan to ensure they have substitutes who can cover and that plan was made for COVID-19.
“We have such a high number of absences, we had to close down because we didn’t have enough staff for our critical positions,” Henderson said. “We have a small sub pool of substitutes that is not very big. We really encourage people to apply to be a substitute in the district.”
Henderson made the decision on Jan. 10 to close the schools on-site, which impacted the 3,012 students at Aberdeen’s eight schools, The Daily World reported.
Almost 28 percent of the student body across the district was absent because of illness on Jan. 10, or they were quarantined as close contacts because of COVID-19. More than 38 percent — 323 students — of Aberdeen High School students were absent that day.
Students transitioned for a two-week period because of the student absences, as well as for staff shortages — of which there were 44 absent on Jan. 10, almost 9 percent of the staff.
But, it sounds as though ASD staff worked on a plan over the last two weeks.
Part of that plan is that staff with teaching, or substitute teaching, certificates can fill in for those who call out sick.
Christi Sayres, human resources director for Aberdeen schools, said staffing in the district might be OK on Jan. 25.
“We have obviously taken these two weeks to put in greater detail to ensure we have coverage if our substitutes are still out themselves,” Sayres said. “I’m going over that today with our substitute coordinator.”
The good news for the district, Sayres said, is that she feels the district staff is recovering and returning. Sayres keeps track of those members who are out.
“They will contact me and I ask them a series of questions,” she said. “So, I can see how long they need to be out. I track that and I work with them. We determine their work date. If the return date comes and they’re still not feeling well, I ask them to contact me again.”
She was referring to the health guidance that says those who test positive, quarantine for five days. If at the end of the five days they aren’t feeling well, then they test again. If they test positive, then they continue to stay out.
“Our staff is amazing,” Sayres said. “They do a really good job contacting me and then we work through this together.”
Sayres said the custodial staff is well prepared.
“They all know sanitization is a high priority for the schools,” she said. “They definitely take it very seriously.”
The hope now is there won’t be calls for absences between early Monday afternoon, Jan. 24, and Tuesday morning, when students are supposed to return to their campuses.
“A lot of times people don’t call in until the morning of (school,)” Sayres said. “As of right now, I don’t have any unfilled teaching positions at this point. If somebody is out, there is a substitute in place for them. As of 12:32 p.m. on Monday, we’re looking great. Tomorrow morning could be a different story.”
Henderson said since the pandemic shutdown schools across the nation in March 2020, that the district has seen a dip in student performance.
“It’s pretty noticeable in our elementary students, especially students learning to read,” Henderson said. “We are seeing it. It’s across the nation. It’s becoming noticeable that the impact of these shutdowns and not having school in session has been difficult for many, many children.”
Henderson was glad on Monday that the classroom learning was about to resume.
“Fortunately, we are looking forward to coming back in-person,” she said. “We’re committed to staying in-person for the remainder of the school year.”
