MAIMISBURG — Miamisburg City Schools are seeing staffing shortages across the board and district officials say they fear it could impact their ability to keep schools from shutting down this year.
Nine weeks into the school year, Superintendent Dr. Laura Blessing said the district has lacked enough custodial staff, cooking staff, bus drivers and teachers.
Blessing told News Center 7′s Candace Price that the shortages have been a “challenge everyday.”
>> Ohio BMV fixes Wright Brothers error on new license plate; 35,000 erroneous plates printed
Blessing said the district’s biggest shortages have been with bus drivers and substitute teaching assistants. On Thursday, the district had approximately 45 teacher absences, but only 26 substitutes.
Schools in the district have had to use on-demand substitutes that are available to fill in last minute. Blessing said those on-demand substitutes have been “basically used every single day.” Blessing herself has even had to step in to teach some days.
As for bus drivers, the district has had to reduce their routes from 54 to 48 due to driver shortages. Blessing said the district has had to turn to other district employees to drive buses when needed.
>> Illegal ‘gambling houses’ raided in Clark County; 3 out-of-state people arrested
“Our assistant superintendent drives, [our] supervisor for transporting drives,” Blessing said. “If we have other maintenance [employees], sometimes we ask them to drive.”
Miamisburg has not been the only district to be hit by staffing shortages. News Center 7 reached out to other local districts. Centerville City Schools said they have had enough staff, but have been short on substitutes. Additionally, Springfield City Schools were forced to have a two-hour delay Thursday due to a shortage of bus drivers.
Miamisburg City Schools say they do not currently have a vaccine mandate, but do require masks for students Pre-K through grade 12, as well as staff and volunteers.
©2021 Cox Media Group
