Parents along the Front Range have had to adjust their lives to accommodate school districts that have, rather suddenly, canceled seemingly random days of classroom instruction.

During a slow start to the winter snow season, the reasons are not related to inclement road conditions. They aren't even directly related to COVID-19.

Classes are being canceled because too many teachers requested not to work.

The Boulder Valley School District — the state's eighth-largest district with more than 31,000 students — canceled classes this past Friday. That covers 56 schools spread across the district's 11 communities, from the foothills to Denver's suburbs.

In public statements, the district attributed the decision to the fact that Friday came a day after the district had taken the Veterans Day holiday off. As such, the district described Friday as an isolated "floating" day of classroom instruction before the weekend.

The surprise long weekend was awfully convenient for the 478 teachers who requested leave. It wasn't too convenient for the working parents who had to figure out a way to accommodate their kids a day after they did the same on Veterans Day — a holiday many workers in the private sector don't have off, by the way.

At least the district was transparent in acknowledging the adverse effects of having to cancel classes. A Boulder Valley spokesman told FOX 31 "we don't take this decision lightly." The district was also blunt in its public messaging about its dire need for myriad staff.

Meanwhile, Denver Public Schools — the state's largest district with more than 91,000 students — projected 489 teachers would be absent last Friday. That means more than 10% of the 4,705 teachers in the state's largest district all elected to take off on the same day.

To make matters worse, the district also announced that students and staff will have off this coming Friday. The move effectively extends the district's previously-scheduled full week of Thanksgiving vacation to six weekdays.

The situation is even less ideal for the district's reserve platoon of instructors, its 377 substitutes. As DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero pleads with the public to help boost DPS' number of substitutes closer to his desired amount, 1,200, a teacher's union official said the situation is further compounded. How so? By the reality, she said, that many substitutes are older retirees trying to avoid classroom COVID spread amid an increase in cases in Colorado.

As a result, Denver Public Schools is in a rather unprecedented pickle as they affix a stockpile of "now hiring" lawn signs in neighborhoods across the city.

On the one hand, the district says full-time teachers need the days off for the sake of their mental health after a grueling return to a more normal school year. Marrero last week even went as far as saying DPS teachers are currently so spent they feel like it's March. But, on the other hand, because DPS' substitutes are older and, demographically, more at-risk to COVID-19, now is a terrible time for them to step in for younger full-time teachers as COVID cases increase.

Over in Adams County, Adams 12 Five Star Schools — the state's sixth-largest district with more than 37,000 students — and Adams 14 School District — more than 6,000 students — each also canceled classes last Friday. Each district cited staff shortages — Adams 12 with nearly 150 positions vacant.

And in the Pikes Peak region, Academy School District 20 — Colorado Springs' largest district — canceled classes at a pair of schools on a Tuesday late last month. The reason, the district said, was because police had informed the district of plans for a "large-scale" protest of upward of 1,600 people.

The protest didn't materialize, with merely a handful of parents showing up. Neither did in-person classes that day for kids at Chinook Trail middle and elementary schools. But what has since materialized is the district's report on what elicited the protest — big or small — in the first place. After a multi-week self-investigation pushed past Election Day, the district acknowledged teachers at Chinook Trail Middle School had indeed instructed students to tape masks to their faces during classroom instruction.

We won't be surprised if through this holiday season more districts announce more random closures. The workforce shortage is that bad. But so is the entitlement mind-set schools now seem to harbor in a COVID-19 world in which they are much more OK with keeping kids home.

State schools mustn't make sudden class cancellations a habit. A lot of faculty and staff may think they can't endure another day on duty without a break — but far more parents can't afford a day off.

REPRINTED FROM THE COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE

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