COVID-19 spike creates chaos among Visalia Unified teachers, students, bus drivers

Visalia Unified students and teachers continue to feel the impact of the pandemic, this time in the form of staffing shortages, empty classrooms and late school busses.

A notice was sent to parents Friday night surrounding staff shortages, detailing the district's plans to remain open.

"The recent surge of cases has had a significant impact on our staffing level, and we anticipate it will continue to have an impact on our staffing level for at least the next few weeks," a press release from Visalia Unified states. "I assure you that we have a plan in place to keep our schools open."

The plans include details about classroom coverage, including the steps the district takes when finding substitute teachers — which have been in short supply.

First, the district searches for someone from the substitute teacher pool, and if there is no substitute available, the district then asks an on-site teacher or administrator to fill in.

If no one on-site is available, a district office teacher or administrator is asked to cover the classroom. If the district cannot accommodate the class using the aforementioned methods, students are redistributed into other grade-level classes for the day.

The notice to parents was sent out Friday after 440 Visalia Unified staff were reported to be in quarantine or isolation, while around 185 staff have tested positive for COVID-19.

Last week, 81 Visalia Unified staff tested positive for the virus and over 260 teachers were in isolation or quarantine due to exposure or potential exposure to COVID-19.

Teachers and administrators throughout the district reported being pulled into other classes to help cover, and many no longer have a free period — time set aside for teachers to grade papers and prepare for classes later in the day or week.

Visalia Unified also reported an increase in student absences for the second week in a row since returning from winter break. More than 5,000 of its students, around 19% overall, were absent Friday compared to 14.2% of students absent on the Monday following the winter break.

Teachers have reported as many as a dozen students out.

Usually, the district marks around 5% of students absent on a normal day. Teachers reported more than 25% of their students were absent from classes last week.

Outside of the classroom, Visalia Unified bus drivers are also being impacted by staffing shortages. The district sent a notice to parents announcing some of its routes would be impacted and busses would be delayed through the rest of the week.

"Staffing shortages are impacting our operations staff as well," a press release from Visalia Unified reads. "Buses will arrive at each stop daily but might be 10-20 minutes delayed due to the doubling up of routes."

Parents reported buses were anywhere from 30 minutes to 45 minutes late Wednesday morning.

Staffing shortages throughout the district came after a surge of positive cases in Tulare County. Local health officials reported a weekly record of 7,270 new COVID-19 cases and the county's case rate increased to 146.8 per 10,000 from 58.2 a week ago.

Three weeks ago, the county's new case rate was 11 per 10,000.

The case and positivity rates and current active cases over 9,400 are the highest recorded in Tulare County during the pandemic.

Lauren Jennings covers education and news for the Visalia Times-Delta/Tulare Advance-Register. Follow her on Twitter @lolojennings. Get alerts and keep up on all things Tulare County for as little as $1 a month. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Visalia Unified teachers, students, bus drivers reel from COVID-19 spike