It's less than a week into the school year and already one Hawke's Bay primary and six Waikato schools have been hard hit.
Hamilton Christian School's entire Year 7 is off due to COVID and its principal is calling on the Ministry of Health to adopt a more flexible funding model that'd see more schools bring back unvaccinated teachers to help with online learning.
Not a single Year 7 student was allowed onsite at Hamilton Christian School today. They’re all considered close contacts of a case who attended last week - 80 students plus 60 siblings and teachers all now isolating at home.
"It has a huge impact because they are brand new to our school," Hamilton Christian School Principal Shaun Brooker says.
"For them to be thrown into online learning is not ideal. It’s something none of us wanted at the school but we had all planned for. We just didn't want it to be day one!"
Within just a few hundred metres, two other schools - Rototuna Junior High and Te Totara Primary - also have positive cases and students at home in self-isolation. So do Hamilton Boys High and Melville Intermediate, and in Hawke’s Bay there are several cases of Omicron at Te Mata Primary.
A new normal, the Post Primary Teachers' Association (PPTA) says, is putting huge pressure on schools already this year.
"It's impossible to be teaching both face-to-face and having isolating at home the workload of that is tremendous and everyone loses with it," PPTA President Melanie Webber says.
Hamilton Christian School has lost seven teachers due to the vaccination mandate. Its principal wants the Ministry of Education to improve funding to give more of them work, especially with relievers in short supply.
"One of the ideas that has been put back is whether we can employ them to do our online learning across schools and that would give them something to do but take a lot of pressure off our own staff that are currently here," Brooker says.
The Ministry of Education says it's working closely with the Public Health Service this year to support schools dealing with positive cases and it "encourages any school, kura or centre facing staffing challenges, including as a result of self isolation requirements to reach out to their regional office".
The PPTA says it doesn't help the Ministry's increasingly expecting teachers to use their non-contact prep time to help supervise their colleague's classes, when they're off sick.
"There’s so much that’s not ideal about this situation. Teachers are pulling together to do their absolute best to make it work but they will reach a point they just can’t do it any more. It’s tough but it’s tough for everyone," Webber says.
And toughing it out in a pandemic is proving to be an education in itself.
