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Teacher absences in Hawaii‘s public schools are still higher than usual but continued to decline last week, reflecting the declining wave of the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
During the school week of Jan. 31 through Friday, absentee teachers nationwide made an average of 1,500 requests a day for temporary substitute teachers, according to data from the state Department of Education.
That was a 7% decrease from the previous week, when there were an average of 1,621 requests for representation per day.
Teacher absenteeism increased dramatically earlier during the Omicron surge, with requests for substitute staff peaking at 2,159 on Jan. 14.
For comparison, in early December, prior to the surge, a more typical number of substitute teacher requests was around 1,300.
With so many teachers absent and not enough substitutes enrolling to cover jobs at the state’s 257 public schools, some campuses had to hire other staff to oversee students who were missing their regular teachers, and students became intermittent in other classrooms, cafeterias, and lecture halls.
The temporary arrangements have drawn complaints from some educators, parents, and the Hawaii State Teachers Association.
Keith Hayashi, superintendent of state transition schools, said Jan. 5 that about half of the teachers who called at the time were on sick leave, with the rest for other reasons such as holidays and family leave.
During the school week of January 31, there was an average of 178 vacancies per day for substitute teachers. That was down 31% from the week of January 24, when an average of 259 spares per day were vacant.
The DOE says it has about 13,000 teachers and a pool of 3,922 substitute teachers available nationwide.
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