Two southwest Michigan school districts have moved to remote learning Thursday and Friday due to shortages of school bus drivers.
Niles schools announced the decision to go virtual on Wednesday. In a letter posted to the district website, superintendent Dan Applegate said the district “is not immune” to the staffing shortages facing districts across the United States as COVID-19 cases surge due to the Omicron variant.
The district is providing free lunch to all students at Niles High School from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on both Thursday and Friday, and all extracurricular activities are continuing as scheduled.
Edwardsburg Public Schools are also going remote for the rest of the week due to those bus driver shortages.
In a letter posted to the district’s Facebook page, superintendent James Knoll said that the absences were not all related to COVID-19, but a mix of personal and health issues among the bus drivers. All high school extracurricular activities are proceeding as scheduled.
Both districts, like most area schools, have Monday off in observance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday.
Contact Jakob at jlazzaro@wvpe.org or follow him on Twitter at @JakobLazzaro.
If you appreciate this kind of journalism on your local NPR station, please support it by donating here.
