School employees asked to work extra shifts due to staffing shortage

According to labor department data, in September 30,000 teachers quit their jobs. The severe staffing shortage has left schools to rely on teachers to pick up extra shifts to function. 

Gel Ortiz who works at Barnum Elementary School said that she works as a principal, assistant principal, teacher, paraprofessional, covering classes and lunch recess duty. Grace Saenz works in the school's main office but now she also leads the third-grade class. Denver Public Schools Superintendent Alex Marrero said that the main issue is due to the absence of substitutes. Schools rely heavily on substitute teachers, guest teachers, ancillary staff, etc, and since these roles are vacant in huge numbers it's creating a major problem. The available pool of substitutes in the city plummeted from 1200 to 375. The overworking of permanent staff members has led to increased cases of burnout. All school staff including teachers, drivers, cafeteria workers, etc have been complaining of being tired constantly, this has also led to many of them quitting their jobs if not for the fear of Covid. 

In order to help, the Denver district recently implemented an unprecedented mental health day for the entire 90,000 student district. The upcoming winter break will come as a much-needed relief for the staff but the rest of the academic year is still looming ahead of them. 

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Source: CBS News