ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - As more school districts return to online learning due to COVID-19 caused staff shortages, the head of the consortium of local superintendents is calling on the community to step up to stop the spread of the virus.
EducationPlus CEO Paul Ziegler says superintendents are anxious because they're losing so many teachers and substitutes to infection and quarantine. He says most of the cases are not coming from within schools, where protocols are being followed, but from the community. "Unfortunately, outside of school we're not always having as much success with students or staff being able to change some of their behavior."
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Ziegler says if you believe having kids in school is important, you will have to change your behavior. He says that's especially important with the holidays approaching.
"They're going to have to curtail their Thanksgiving plans," says Ziegler. "They're going to have to, maybe, change some things that they've traditionally done over the holiday, even though we don't want to. I think that's going to be the only way, if it's important for somebody to have their schools remain open, we, as a community, have to buy into the fact that we have to change our behaviors."
Some districts, Ziegler says, are deciding how to handle the return to class after Thanksgiving, "Giving some extra days to try and encourage people to make sure they're making good decisions," he says. "Thinking about what they're doing to make sure we're not bringing positivities back into our school."
EducationPlus is an organization of 58 St. Louis area school districts and individual schools.
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