PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — After catching heat for its eleventh-hour shift to virtual classes because of COVID-19 staffing shortages, the Philadelphia School District is making a move to give parents more notice, giving updates twice a day.
The district said that at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m., it will let parents know if their schools are going virtual because of those shortages.
This follows Monday night's announcements that classes at more than a third of its schools were going online the next day.
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“I just think that it’s abysmal," said City Councilmember Katherine Gilmore Richardson, a parent of three district students.
“I’m thinking about so many families like mine who have multiple children, who need to make adequate arrangements for their young people for the next day.”
She added the district should have expected there would be staffing issues because of the skyrocketing number of COVID-19 cases.
“We knew as a city that we had a positivity rate anywhere between 25 and 33% the whole winter break," she said. "We should have communicated this with families a very long time ago.”
Monica Lewis, the district’s deputy chief of communications, said administrators spent much of Monday looking at which schools would have enough staff and made the call as soon as they could.
“I don’t believe we could have done it earlier," she said.
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The Philadelphia Federation of Teachers said its survey found 90% of schools reported COVID-19 staffing shortages.
The union has called on the district to pause all in-person instruction for seven days, calling the return from winter break “chaotic and entirely untenable.”