As exposure to the coronavirus forced thousands of teachers across the United States to stay home and quarantine this winter, administrators in the Washoe County School District, which serves 62,000 students in western Nevada, pulled out all the stops to try to continue in-person instruction for students.

We had to embrace an all-hands-on-deck mindset to keep schools open,” said Joe Ernst, an area superintendent who oversees 24 Washoe County schools.
 

But by late November, the virus had forced so many teachers to stay home that the district was unable to cover some 2,000 requests for substitutes. Soon after, the district halted in-person instruction, shifting all middle and high schools to remote learning until this week.

As spikes in virus infections and exposures have forced more educators to stay home, the teacher shortage — exacerbated by limited access to COVID-19 testing and contact tracing — is among the main reasons that schools and even entire districts have had to shut down in-person instruction, often for weeks on end.

Desperate to stanch staffing shortfalls, districts large and small are increasing pay for substitutes and even advertising for temporary positions on local billboards. Some states and districts have also suspended college course requirements, or permitted abbreviated online training, for emergency substitute teachers.
 

Although stopgap staffing solutions may be necessary during the pandemic, education experts say they could diminish the quality of in-person learning, further disrupting education for a generation of children.