Thousands of Central Florida students continue to miss school because of COVID-19 as do hundreds of teachers and other staff, absences that have raised fears about ongoing “learning loss” and left principals helping in cafeterias, aides running classes and teachers taking on missing colleagues’ students.
“It’s definitely a struggle, no question,” said Wendy Honeycutt, principal of Sunrise Elementary School in Osceola County, who worked from home last week after she tested positive for the virus.
“Everyone is having to be incredibly flexible, just trying to cover wherever,” she said. “People are doing it because they know it’s needed, and it’s what best for kids.”
Honeycutt was back on campus this week but Thursday morning 14 Sunrise teachers and other employees were out because of COVID-19 and two others had to leave midday when they showed symptoms of illness. About 100 Sunrise students were absent that day; pre-pandemic maybe 25 would be, she added.
The recent coronavirus surge, fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant, began in late December in Florida, just when schools were closed for their winter break. When Central Florida campuses reopened the week of Jan. 3, they quickly felt omicron’s presence, as the number of cases reported for students and staff shot up and then so did the absences.
COVID-19 cases statewide began falling last week giving educators some hope of a coming reprieve but the positivity rate in the region is still more than 30% and many schools have empty desks.
Orange County Public Schools reported about 28,500 student absences on Tuesday, an improvement from the 40,000 absences reported Wednesday, Jan. 5 but still more than double the 12,600 reported on Wednesday, Dec. 8., before the recent surge, OCPS figures show.
Educators said absences come from students who tested positive, students who are sick and students who were exposed to a positive student and opted to stay off-campus.
The Orange school district reported hundreds of student COVID-19 cases every school day since classes restarted Jan. 4, for a total of more than 6,700 so far in 2022. There were 743 reported on Tuesday alone. By comparison, from October through December the daily caseload was typically in the double digits, with 13 cases reported Nov. 17, for example.
Both the Lake and Osceola county school districts reported more than 1,000 students and hundreds of staff tested positive for COVID-19 last week.
In response, Lake County Schools sent 93 employees from its district office out to schools to help fill in for absent employees. The district posted a photo on Facebook of an assistant superintendent in an elementary school cafeteria where he’d helped open milk cartons and ketchup packets for young students.
Regina Lopez, a Lake mother, said that in the three weeks since break, some of her children’s teachers have been absent, and her kids have missed school after a younger sibling tested positive for COVID-19.
Her second and third graders’ teachers posted some work online for them to do at home, though it didn’t make up for the missed school days. Her kindergartener’s teacher told her so many students in the class were absent that she wasn’t going to post assignments and would try to catch everyone up later.
All of it has led Lopez to a blunt conclusion: “This school year has been horrible. The kids are behind,” she said.
Seminole County School Board member Tina Calderone, speaking at Tuesday’s board meeting, said she worried about the academic fallout from so many students and staff missing school.
“I spent the morning in a school today, and there’s a lot of absences,” she said. “When teachers are absent, the teaching isn’t occurring. And when the students are absent they’re not able to take in all the great education that our teachers are imparting.”
Seminole County Public Schools reported 489 active COVID-19 cases among students and staff on Friday.
Teacher absences are especially challenging for schools now because of an ongoing shortage of substitute teachers. That means sometimes students are divided up among other classes or several classes are combined in one big room, supervised but not always with someone who can provide the day’s lessons.
“Our students are sitting in the gym and in the computer labs and playing on their phones,” said Belinda Ewen, a Seminole parent, speaking at Tuesday’s meeting. “There’s no way if our teachers aren’t present…that our students are getting the best education they possibly can.”
At Sunrise just outside Kissimmee, Honeycutt understands all those worries.
Teachers are trying to push ahead with instruction but large numbers of absent students mean constant catch-up efforts, too.
“We’re seeing the learning loss because of absenteeism,” she said.
Her staff has been “amazing” trying to cover for absent colleagues and taking on tasks outside their job descriptions. The school also appreciates the parents and grandparents who have stepped in to help, supervising children in the cafeteria, for example. She hopes parents continue to “show us some grace” when things do not run as smoothly as usual.
“It’s been really hard since coming back from break,” she added.
lpostal@orlandosentinel.com
