Five Day Pause

Over the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, CCSD implemented a five day pause to provide relief  to staffing shortages due to the high number of positive Covid tests. Assistant Principal Derryck  Rickards at Sierra Vista High School mentioned the struggles and effects before and after the  pause. “Our biggest struggle at Vista was, increasing positivity rates in the county led to staffing  shortages which created great challenges ensuring classrooms were covered.” shared Rickards. When a teacher requests a substitute, they use the CCSD system SmartFind to place a substitute  in the vacancy. However, when there is a shortage of substitutes, teachers are asked to “sell”  their planning and cover a class. Freshman Sydney Ingersoll said, “I had at least one teacher  gone per day.” Although staff was out, teachers were still required to post lessons and materials  in Canvas to ensure students’ learning did not become disrupted.  

While schools across the district feel the pressures of staffing shortages, CCSD developed their  five day pause using the contingency days built into the school year. Rickards said, “…The five day pause was to allow for any school personnel that may have been quarantined to recover  according to the new CDC guidelines of a five-day quarantine,” and fortunately the pause was  effective, continuing Rickards said, “…our staff was essentially at full strength, so the pause had  the desired effect.” Ingersoll mentioned, “After the pause all my teachers were back in class and  no one has been gone since, I do think the five day pause was effective but I do not know how  long the effects will last.” “We hope another pause is not necessary in the future, as we hope to  see positivity rates lower.” shared Rickards. For now the positive results of the five day pause are  still in effect. 

Rickards continued on to say, “We are lucky to have such great teaching and support staff here at  Vista and we were able to make it through without too many headaches.”  For students at SVHS, the five day pause resulted in a change to the Gold/Blue days, and it is  recommended they look at the school website to download the revised version of the calendar.