Supporting Our Scholars and Keeping Our Schools Open through the Staffing Crisis

Jan. 7, 2022

Supporting Our Scholars and Keeping Our Schools

Open through the Staffing Crisis

Dear Central-Support Team,

Once again, I want to thank you for all of the work and dedication you’ve shown to ensure that our schools and scholars have the support they need. We’re now coming up on two years since the COVID-19 pandemic first hit and closed down our schools for many months. We all know how hard it’s been on our entire community, and I’m extremely grateful for the way Team DPS has risen to the call this school year to keep our buildings open for in-person learning and support. I know it’s been rough; I know it’s been draining; I also know it’s critically important to our children, our families, and our city.

The challenge to keep schools open for our kids and families has become extremely difficult. Schools are deploying all available staff to classrooms and to extra duty in order to stay open and serve scholars. And we’re still struggling every day to keep the doors open. Due to the increasing severity of the staffing shortage created by the recent surge in COVID cases, we need the help of our Central Team members to keep our schools open and to serve our scholars and families.

Beginning next week, we will be assigning Central Team members to work as a substitute teacher, a paraprofessional, or support staff in order to keep that school open for in-person learning and support. The assignments are likely to start on Thursday, Jan. 13.

Highlights

Central Team members will be assigned to schools, starting with the highest-needs schools facing the most severe shortages.

The school assignments will likely be for 1 day per week.

The highest-needs days are Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays. This is when most of the staffing assignments will be made.

We will be creating an extra-duty pay schedule that aligns with how school-based staff are compensated for taking on extra duties.

There will be ample personal protective equipment, including KN95 masks, available at all schools to staff who need it.

Central leadership is expected to manage the priority work of their department and make adjustments in work responsibilities to account for the team members working in schools.

These assignments will likely be for one day per week (although it’s possible that it could be two days in a week in rare, urgent situations), and the assignments will be made differently than how this system worked last year. We have identified priority schools where the staffing needs are the highest, and we will be assigning staff to these schools and working to match qualifications (certification and classroom experience) with the assignments. (Please fill out the attached survey to help us make the assignments that are best for you and our schools.) Also, we will be creating an extra-duty pay schedule that aligns with how school-based staff are compensated for taking on extra duties. Details on that compensation will be provided next week. There will also be more details coming early next week on how substitute-teaching assignments will be made, and we will be posting an FAQ on The Commons soon. Please know that we will return to normal Central operations as soon as the staffing crisis in our schools created by the pandemic has eased.

Please Fill Out This Survey by End of Day on Monday, Jan. 10 to Help Us with School Assignments

There will be ample personal protective equipment, including KN95 masks, available at all schools for staff who need it. And, like at our Central sites, we have strong safeguards in place to ensure the safest and healthiest conditions possible.

The pandemic has already taken so much from our scholars and our schools. We’re only just beginning to understand the massive toll it’s taken on our scholars’ academic growth and overall health and well-being. They need more – much more – time in school to help accelerate their development and get them where they need to be to succeed. The possibility of more lost time in school is unacceptable to me. I know it’s a difficult step to take to redirect people from their important and valued work at central sites out to schools to keep them open, but it’s what our scholars need.

And it’s in times of intense challenge and dire needs like we’re in right now that we look to our Shared Core Values to guide and ground us. To me, that especially means we must put Students First. In a very practical and down-to-earth way, from what I have seen of Team DPS, we are at our best when we are living our values, particularly when the test is tough. I will be working out in our schools and classrooms to help get us through this staffing crisis, and I’m completely focused on providing our schools and scholars with the support they need.

In collaboration,

Dr. Alex Marrero

Superintendent

Note: We send many DPS communications via this platform. Please do not unsubscribe from these messages or you will not receive future important messages. If a specific message doesn't interest you, simply delete it and stay tuned for a future communication that will be of more interest. If you have questions, please email office_communications@dpsk12.org.