'Unprecedented' Bus Driver Absence In Oswego Not COVID-Related

Oswego IL

21 September, 2021

6:00 PM

Description

OSWEGO, IL — After an "unprecedented" number of Oswego School District 308 bus drivers and monitors called in sick Tuesday morning, officials don't yet know if students, who learned remotely Tuesday as a result, will return to in-person learning Wednesday. But the district said the drivers' absences were not related to COVID-19. "We do hope to have some sort of communication out as quickly as possible but at this point, we don't have any indication if those same people will be out tomorrow," Theresa Komitas, the district's director of communications, told Patch Tuesday afternoon. Early Tuesday morning, 24 bus drivers and 15 monitors called off, she said, resulting in junior high and high school students taking their regular classes remotely Tuesday. Students have district-issued computers and are familiar with Google Classroom, Komitas said, so remote learning made sense. Elementary students were still bussed to school but ran late, and out-of-district-placed students attended in-person classes. Komitas said there has to be a certain percentage of students in attendance on a given day for it to count toward the school year, and given the short notice of absences Tuesday morning, she said remote learning was "the easiest and most familiar option." A hundred bus drivers and monitors are employed by the district, and 33 of them were among those who called off. Officials aren't certain if the absence was organized but said it's not COVID-19-related, according to Komitas. "They were simply people that called off this morning," she said. The deadline for Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker's vaccine mandate for teachers is set for Oct. 4, and Komitas said district officials are working to determine if that played a role in Tuesday's large absence. Similar to other school districts in the state, Oswego's District 308 is facing "extreme" staff shortages. Schools are down about 12 drivers on a daily basis, which has led to revised and consolidated bus routes, Patch previously reported. RELATED: District 308 Bus Routes Revised Due To 'Extreme' Staff Shortage In an effort to remedy the problem, officials posted job listings that included calls for bus drivers and monitors. (For more news and information like this, subscribe to the Oswego Patch for free. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app; download the free Patch Android app here. Don't forget to like us on Facebook!)