The biggest school district in Kern County brought general education students of all grade levels back onto its campuses this fall. It had vocal support from families, the administration and the board to bring students on campus as quickly as possible.

The gradual rollout at Rosedale Union School District was completed last week when the oldest students returned. But it didn’t last long.

A middle school in the closed its campus Thursday, a little over a week after opening, and the rest of the school district will switch back to distance learning next week.

The culprit? Staffing, said Superintendent Sue Lemon.

“It started to snowball,” Lemon said. “I saw the dominoes falling.”

Lemon said the number of staff members quarantining at home because of COVID-19 exposures began to add up quickly.

She said she expected that some classes would move into quarantine because of exposures during the pandemic, but she didn’t expect to run out of staff so quickly.

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