Walkerville pauses in-person instruction due to staff with COVID-19, sub shortage.

Walkerville pauses in-person instruction due to staff with COVID-19, sub shortage.

WALKERVILLE — Walkerville Public Schools has paused in-person learning due to staff who have tested positive with COVID-19 or are being quarantined as well as a substitute teacher shortage.

Walkerville Superintendent Tom Langdon announced last Tuesday, Sept. 21, that in-person instruction would be paused until the end of the week. The school leader then announced Friday, Sept. 24, that the school would stay in the virtual learning mode through Wednesday of this week, Sept. 29. 

“Let me be the clearest that I can be regarding the fact that we do not want to have to do this, but feel we must because of the number of our staff who are COVID positive or quarantined; and nearly as important as that, the fact that there are really very few substitute teachers out there — in fact, right now we can’t find hardly any,” states Landgon in a post on the school district’s Facebook page.

“This is not unusual to WPS, as schools around us are experiencing the same difficulty. By the way, if you would like to substitute teach please call our office to find out how you may do so.

“Again, we are beyond frustrated, and you probably are even more frustrated than we are. We WANT to have face-to-face instruction, in fact we NEED to have face-to-face instruction, and that’s why we are waiting until Thursday to do so.

“Remember last fall when we had to go virtual in first grade for a short time? We did that to get our bearings and make sure that our cases didn’t get out of hand. Well something worked, because we had a stellar remainder of the year when it came to offering face-to-face instruction.

“This year we are doing the same to create a little separation, let the quarantine timelines expire and then welcome staff and students back under conditions that will make it less likely that we will have to switch to virtual instruction again.

“That is our hope, no, our commitment to you. We desperately want our students to experience the most normal (in-school) education as possible this year, even if it means changing things up programmatically at times. In other words, creativity will be a big part of keeping kids in school at WPS.

“Finally, know that I am not happy about the decision to extend virtual learning — which pales in comparison to in-class learning — through Wednesday (Sept. 29), and I know you aren’t either. Be assured that I don’t want to have to put together another post like this again, and will do my best not to have to do so.”

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