How many teachers out sick is too many teachers out sick?

I work in a private school where we handle all teacher substitutions in house; we do not hire any outside subs, but rather assign other teachers in the school to cover the classes of the absent teachers. (We have a 7 period snaking schedule, 5 periods meeting per day. Each teacher teaches 5 of the 7 periods, and is expected to be able to cover absent teachers and/or study halls during their two “free“ periods.)

Recently, our school has been hit pretty hard with the cold, flu, and other illnesses, means lots of absences. I was having a discussion with a member of the administration yesterday and we started pondering whether or not it made sense to keep the school open with so many teachers out sick.

It brought up this question: how many teachers out sick is too many teachers out sick? At what point is it not reasonable to hold school when the majority of classes are “study halls“ covered by a teacher outside of the discipline?

I’m curious about what you think and I welcome a productive discussion.

Edit: I realized I should clarify, this is a high school, so we’re not talking general classes, we’re talking very content specific courses.

Submitted March 05, 2020 at 04:55AM by ProfESnape https://ift.tt/38rUVHS