Covid restrictions force NSW schools to shut down

One fifth of students in NSW did not turn up to class on Monday due to Covid and schools are grappling with staff shortages. Should self-isolation rules for teachers and students be changed?

One in five public school students did not turn up to class on Monday because they were sick, self-isolating or simply told to learn from home due to the fact there were not enough teachers to cover classes.

In other schools, students are spending the day watching movies in halls because of the lack of teachers, the union representing the state’s private and Catholic schools said.

Attendance dropped from 86 per cent of public school students in mid March to 81 per cent on Monday, equating to about 164,000 pupils.

Twenty public schools directed entire cohorts of students they must learn from home on Monday amid large numbers of staff calling in sick due to Covid outbreaks.

On Sydney’s North Shore, Brigidine College at St Ives had so many staff and students sick it ruled out any return to the classroom until Monday.

Chatswood High School is among the schools with a large percentage of students self-isolating.

“With a significant spike of Covid-19 cases for both students and staff, and the subsequent flow-on effect to household contacts requiring to isolate, Brigidine College has been unable to adequately supervise classes due to staff shortages,” a school spokeswoman said.

Cronulla High School emailed parents to tell them more than a dozen teachers would be unavailable for scheduled parent-teacher interviews last night because they had either been infected with Covid or were isolating.

Independent Education Union acting secretary Carol Matthews said the substitute teacher shortage had meant staff left standing were in some cases wandering school corridors trying to supervise three classes at once.

Thousands of teachers rallied outside NSW Parliament House last December to protest pay and staff shortages. Picture: James D. Morgan/Getty Images

“It can mean a secondary school teacher supervising a number of classes simultaneously from the corridor, it can mean students in the school hall watching films all day,” she said.

“It is certainly impacting on teachers who are exhausted covering the classes of absent colleagues.”

At Chatswood High, a large percentage of the 1628 students were in self-isolation yesterday and learning from home. The school’s P and C president Angela Todd said the situation was a “hotchpotch mix where it’s half face-to-face learning and online.”

“I think last year when everyone was home there was more focus on online learning and maybe it had more consistency,” she said.

Health Minister Brad Hazzard said isolation rules for teachers were made by employers by way of keeping their staff safe and easing restrictions could see cases and staff furloughs increase even further.

His comments came on the same day the state recorded 19,183 new cases.