More than 90 bus routes were cancelled and hundreds of teachers and staff called out sick Wednesday. Learning disruptions continued into Thursday morning.

DCist/WAMU / Dominique Maria Bonessi

Wednesday was the first day back to school for many Montgomery County Public School students after the winter break, and they were met with massive transportation issues and staffing shortages. According to MCPS, more than 90 bus routes were cancelled and hundreds of teachers and staff called out sick without substitutes available to fill in.

MCPS officials informed parents of the bus cancellations around 8:45 a.m. after a two hour delay was already called for schools, according to the Bethesda Beat. Chris Cram, a spokesperson with MCPS, told DCist/WAMU in a statement that school officials are investigating the cause of the unexpected call outs from bus driver staff to ascertain if they were COVID related. The more than 90 bus routes served multiple schools, Cram said, and the “impact is fairly widespread.”

“We are asking that families work with us and understand that the pandemic is having a great effect on us all,” Cram said in an email to DCist/WAMU. “So carpooling and walking in groups” is an alternative for families who may be affected by staffing shortages.

Cram added it’s unclear how long bus cancellations will continue, and will also affect pick-up and drop off times for students as well. On Thursday morning, 82 out of 1228 bus routes were affected by cancellations, according to a MCPS message to parents Wednesday night. Since the beginning of the school year, MCPS, like many other schools in the region, was facing a bus driver shortage.

Outraged parents took to Twitter Wednesday expressing their frustration with MCPS’ last minute bus cancellations.

When students arrived at school, 1615 substitutes were needed due to teacher absences and less than a quarter of those positions were filled, according to MCPS. Almost 13% of more than 160,000 students were also absent Wednesday, that’s outside the norm of 4-7% of student absences, according to MCPS data.

The teacher shortages continued into Thursday morning. MCPS officials told DCist/WAMU that more than 1,600 substitutes were needed and less than 500 spots were able to be filled.

Cram noted in an email to DCist/WAMU that “even during pre-pandemic times there would be hundreds of substitute requests.”

Silver Spring Resident Laura Stewart told DCist/WAMU that her son, who is a junior at Albert Einstein High School, didn’t have a math teacher Wednesday. She said she was already worried about him returning to school with the surge in COVID cases because she has another son who has asthma.

“When you have some schools with a significant portion of the student body out and the teachers out, how much learning are they getting going to school?” Stewart told DCist/WAMU. “We’re not going to have a perfect year…but in some instances we’re almost getting zero [learning] now and I don’t think that’s acceptable.”

Stewart was one of several parents that signed a petition demanding MCPS test students for COVID prior to returning to school after the winter break.

Other parents took to Facebook sharing the stories of their children at school. One teacher said she sat in on “four combined classes in the gym” at her school. Another parent said his daughter was in the cafeteria for class with multiple other classes and “a beleaguered principal watching over them.” A third parent reported that her child’s “health class had 3 out of 30 students present.”

The delays and learning disruptions come one day after MCPS leadership announced that 11 schools would be closed to in-person learning for two weeks starting Thursday due to the high number of COVID positive students and staff. The school also announced a system to categorize schools by the level of COVID positive cases: red, yellow, and green. Green means less than 3% of students and staff have tested positive for COVID in the last 14 days, yellow means between 3 and 5% have tested positive for COVID within the last 14 days, and red means more than 5% of students and staff are positive in the last 14 days.

By Wednesday evening, more than 130 out of 209 schools were in the red zone showing a high number of positive COVID cases, according to MCPS data.

In an email to parents Wednesday night, MCPS officials wrote that schools “shifting to the red zone does not automatically result in a move to a virtual learning platform. The collaboration with HHS regarding the outlined metrics and robust testing plan will all be part of the decision-making process regarding when and if a school will move to virtual learning.”

This story was updated with the number of teacher and student absences on Wednesday.

Filed Under: coronavirus, COVID, mcps, Montgomery County Public Schools, pandemic, schools,