Coronavirus cases among students and teachers in Hawaii public schools appeared to trend downward significantly last week, according to state Department of Education data. But teacher absences were still higher than normal, and hundreds of calls for substitute teachers still went uncovered.
Last week there were 2,350 cases of coronavirus confirmed across the state’s 257 public schools, as reported Monday afternoon on the DOE’s COVID-19 dashboard.
That figure was markedly lower than the opening weeks of the new semester.
In school week 1 of the new semester, which was Jan. 3-9, 3,289 cases were reported among students and staff statewide.
In week 2, which was Jan. 10-16, 4,212 cases were reported.
In week 3, Jan. 17-23, 3,384 cases were reported.
More cases may be added retroactively.
Last week’s teacher absences — for coronavirus quarantine and isolation as well as other reasons, such as family leave and vacation — resulted in an average of 1,621 calls for substitute teachers per day across the state, the DOE reported.
That was a 1% increase over the previous week, which was a four-day week that included the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Before the surge of the omicron variant of COVID- 19, a typical day in early December saw about 1,300 calls for substitute teachers.
However, a larger percentage of calls for substitute teachers were filled last week. There were 259 substitute jobs unfilled on average per day last week, which was down 5% from the week of Jan. 17, when there were 274 sub jobs unfilled on average per day, the DOE said.
The department has approximately 13,000 teachers statewide and a pool of 3,922 substitute teachers available.
When a classroom teacher is out and there is no substitute teacher, students usually are supervised by other school personnel, such as other teachers and administrators, as well as complex-area staff. The Hawaii State Teachers Association and many teachers and parents have complained that this has caused too many students to be shuffled into cafeterias and auditoriums, and other temporary arrangements causing them to lose learning time.
Student absences also have been unusually high during the omicron surge, with a Jan. 20 DOE report showing some schools with absentee rates two to four times greater than pre-pandemic levels. A Honolulu Star-Advertiser request to the DOE on Monday for updated student absence numbers was not answered.
