A record number of staff members were out with illness in the Park Hill School District on Thursday, Jan. 20, according to an update the school distributed to parents Thursday afternoon.
The following notice was emailed by school officials to parents:
“When we have to make decisions that will affect you and your family, we try to give you as much notice as possible.
The Issue in Park Hill:
Today, we had more than 200 of our staff members out with illness, and we were only able to cover 54% of those with substitutes. This is more than we have ever seen in the history of the Park Hill School District.
Over the last weeks, as these numbers began to spike, our staff has taken extraordinary measures to keep students in school, learning.
We’ve had custodians answering phones and everyone with the proper certification has been covering classrooms, from our specials teachers to our instructional coaches to our building and district administrators. This means that we haven’t been able to provide some key services.
As illness numbers continue to rise, we are reaching a breaking point. If we do not have enough staff to properly supervise our students, we cannot have school.
What This Means for You:
This is why we are warning you today that if our staff absences increase any more, we might need to shut down our district for one or more days.
This would mean everything would close – our schools, our Park Hill Online Academy, our offices, our childcare programs, our tuition preschool, our athletics, our activities and our events. We would not go to virtual learning or an AMI (alternative methods of instruction) day.
We know this would impact your family, so we are asking you to make plans now. In the meantime, please keep your child home if they have any symptoms of illness.
Thank you for your support of the Park Hill School District as we navigate these challenges.”