PHARR — The Valley View ISD Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday to extend paid leave for COVID-19 isolated employees.
Superintendent Silvia Ibarra said Tuesday that the district was encountering employees who had tested positive for the virus or been near someone who had tested positive, but no longer had enough sick days stockpiled to isolate with pay.
VVISD’s board is the second in Hidalgo County to approve extra COVID leave for its employees in a week.
Last Tuesday, Edcouch-Elsa ISD’s board approved a similar resolution.
Ibarra said Tuesday that the resolution gives employees as many as five days out if they need to isolate and will be implemented retroactively through last week.
“I applaud the board for doing that, because we do want to keep our community, our staff, our students safe,” she said. “And of course we don’t want to encourage anybody to be in school just because they don’t want to take personal days.”
Ibarra says giving employees with the virus the economic flexibility to isolate is critical.
“A lot of times they worry, and they don’t want to miss anymore, because it affects their livelihoods, their paychecks. So this is to reassure employees that their safety and their health is first,” she said.
Although she couldn’t say how many employees were facing isolation without any sick days, Ibarra said the district has seen an absenteeism rate of about 10% this semester.
Staffing and substitute shortages have become the norm at schools around Texas since the semester began.
Like other schools in the Rio Grande Valley, Valley View is having trouble finding enough substitutes to cover for absent teachers. Ibarra says she suspects many of them are facing the same isolation needs as her regular employees, and the district has had to make changes to ensure classrooms are staffed.
“We assign other staff, central office staff, to help us at the campuses,” Ibarra said. “We pulled out instructional aides to cover classrooms. You know, whatever we need to do, we’ll do; in some cases we merged classes that were smaller.”
