Paying students to serve lunches during school hours. Bringing retired teachers back to the classroom. Hiring bus drivers for janitorial duties. Shortening in-person instruction to four days a week.

Across the country, these are some of the short-term solutions to a nationwide shortage of school staff at all levels – teachers, administrators, food workers, custodial staff, bus drivers and more – school districts have put into place as they struggle with a combination of sick outages brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, a wave of teacher retirements, employee burnout and back-and-forths with unions.

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