- Ukraine’s occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant faces possible staffing crunch The Associated Press
- Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant facing ‘catastrophic’ staff shortage amid Russian evacuation The Guardian
- Ukraine nuclear chief: the military knows the counteroffensive can’t be directed at the Zaporizhzhia power plant CNN
- Ukrainian troops realise they will have to avoid Zaporizhzhia NPP during counteroffensive – Head of Energoatom Yahoo News
- Homes of Ukrainians who refuse Russian passports given to Putin’s soldiers Business Insider
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Tag Archives: Staffing
‘Street takeovers’ highlights City of Austin staffing shortages – KEYE TV CBS Austin
- ‘Street takeovers’ highlights City of Austin staffing shortages KEYE TV CBS Austin
- Austin mayor embroiled in fight with police officials amid fallout over street race takeover, contract dispute Fox News
- Co-host of weekend street takeover event comments amid contentious police labor contract negotiations FOX 7 Austin
- ‘Dangerous’: San Antonio police chief addresses street racing trend mySA
- Former Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo calls on Gov. Abbott, Legislature to step up after illegal street racing incidents KVUE.com
- View Full Coverage on Google News
CVS, Walmart and Walgreens to reduce pharmacy hours as staffing challenges persist
CVS and Walmart are reducing their pharmacy operating hours across the U.S. to improve employees’ work-life balance as the chains continue to struggle with staffing shortages in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
CVS said it will be “adjusting hours in select stores” come spring, as part of a periodic review of “operating hours to make sure we’re open during peak customer demand.” The move will affect around two-thirds of the company’s approximately 9,000 retail pharmacies beginning in March, a company spokesperson said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
CVS, which is the largest pharmacy chain in the U.S. by revenue, said it’s making the schedule changes in order to “ensure our pharmacy teams are available to serve patients when they’re most needed,” a CVS spokesperson said. “If a pharmacy is closed, a patient can visit any open CVS Pharmacy location for assistance with their immediate prescription needs,” the spokesperson added.
Walmart reduces hours, raises pay
Walmart also said it’s cutting hours at its pharmacy locations nationwide to improve “work-life balance” for its associates.
Walmart pharmacies will be open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday. Previously they were open until 9 p.m. on weekdays.
“Walmart is committed to helping our associates live better. Walmart has a strong and incredible pharmacy team, and we are making this change to not only enhance their work-life balance but also to maintain the best level of service for our customers,” Walmart said in a statement to CBS MoneyWatch.
Walmart said it’s making the schedule change based on feedback from pharmacy staff and customers.
“By positioning our teams in the hours where our customers say they want to visit our pharmacy, we are better able to deliver excellent customer service and support our associates as they continue to serve their communities every day,” Walmart said.
In mid-June, Walmart announced higher wages for more than 36,000 pharmacy technicians, raising their average hourly pay to more than $20.
Prior to the pandemic, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians outnumbered opportunities for employment, according to Michael Hogue, dean of the Loma Linda University School of Pharmacy.
As the COVID-19 vaccines first began to be rolled out in 2021, regional and national pharmacy chains were clamoring for qualified workers to support the massive public health campaign. Job opportunities for pharmacy students soared.
Walgreens hires more pharmacists, raises pay
A spokesperson for the Walgreens pharmacy chain, the second largest in the U.S., also said it has had to adjust pharmacy hours over the past 12-plus months due to staffing challenges.
Walgreens added that it has hired thousands of pharmacists as well as increased pharmacy workers’ pay to address ongoing staffing issues. It said the efforts are working and the issues are subsiding.
“We have seen positive staffing trends for the past several months as we work to return more stores to normal operating hours,” Walgreens said.
Pharmacies aggressively hired pharmacists and pharmacy technicians starting in February 2021, when COVID-19 vaccines were first made available to the general public, to accelerate efforts to inoculate as many people as possible. Pharmacist job postings surged and drugstore chains offered hefty signing bonuses of up to $20,000.
CVS, Walmart to Cut Pharmacy Hours as Staffing Squeeze Continues
CVS, the largest U.S. drugstore chain by revenue, plans in March to cut or shift hours at about two-thirds of its roughly 9,000 U.S. locations. Walmart plans to reduce pharmacy hours by closing at 7 p.m. instead of 9 p.m. at most of its roughly 4,600 stores by March.
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.
previously said it was operating thousands of stores on reduced hours because of staffing shortages. Combined, the three chains operate some 24,000 retail pharmacies across the U.S.
Walmart last year raised pay for pharmacy technicians.
Photo:
Ryan David Brown for The Wall Street Journal
Earlier in the pandemic, CVS and Walgreens struggled to meet demand for Covid shots and vaccines. The chains cut hours and, in some cases, closed pharmacies for entire weekends. Walmart, which sells a wider variety of goods, cut overall store hours, in part, to cope with Covid-related labor shortages and make time to restock empty shelves as demand for basics such as toilet paper surged.
CVS, in a recent notice to field leaders, said most of its reduced hours will be during times when there is low patient demand or when a store has only one pharmacist on site, which the company said is a “top pain point,” for its pharmacists.
CVS said in a statement it periodically reviews pharmacy operating hours as part of the normal course of business to ensure stores are open during high-demand times. “By adjusting hours in select stores this spring, we ensure our pharmacy teams are available to serve patients when they’re most needed,” the company said, adding that customers who encounter a closed pharmacy can seek help at a nearby location.
At Walmart, the shorter hours offer pharmacy workers a better work-life balance and best serve customers in the hours they are most likely to visit the pharmacy, said a company spokeswoman. “This change is a direct result of feedback from our pharmacy associates and listening to our customers,” she said. Some Walmart pharmacies already close before 9 p.m., which will become standard across the country after the change.
An online community message board for Holliston, Mass., a small town about 30 miles outside Boston, was populated with messages last month from locals venting about the unpredictable hours of the CVS in town, said resident Audra Friend, who does digital communications for a nonprofit. Ms. Friend said she struggled for a week in November to refill a prescription for a rescue inhaler at the store because the pharmacy was sporadically closed.
“I would go in, and there was a note on the door saying, ‘Sorry, pharmacy closed,’” said Ms. Friend, who switched her prescriptions to a 24-hour CVS about 5 miles away. She said it would be better to have consistently shorter hours if that meant fewer unexpected closures. “At least that way we’re not just showing up at CVS to find out the pharmacist isn’t there,” she said.
A CVS spokeswoman said that in recent weeks the Holliston store has had no unexpected closures.
The drugstore chains have been working to stop an exodus of pharmacy staff by offering such perks as bonuses, higher pay and guaranteed lunch breaks. Pharmacists were already in short supply before the pandemic, and consumer demand for Covid-19 shots and tests put additional strains on pharmacy operations. Walgreens recently said staffing problems persist and remain a drag on revenue.
Retail pharmacies, which benefited from a bump in sales and profits during the pandemic, are now reworking their business models as demand for Covid tests and vaccines decline and generic-drug sales generate smaller profits.
CVS and Walgreens are closing hundreds of U.S. stores and launching new healthcare offerings as they try to transform themselves into providers of a range of medical services, from diagnostic testing to primary care.
This past summer, Walgreens was offering bonuses up to $75,000 to attract pharmacists, while CVS is working to develop a system in which pharmacists could perform more tasks remotely. The median annual pay for pharmacists was nearly $129,000 in 2021, according to Labor Department data, which also projected slower-than-average employment growth in the profession through 2031.
In the past year, the chains have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into recruiting more pharmacists and technicians but staffing up has proven difficult. Pharmacists remain overworked, pharmacy-chain executives have acknowledged, and fewer people are attending pharmacy schools. The number of pharmacy-school applicants has dropped by more than one-third from its peak a decade ago, according to the Pharmacy College Application Service, a centralized pharmacy-school application service.
Meanwhile, many pharmacists who aren’t quitting the field are leaving drugstores to work in hospitals or with other employers.
Walmart raised wages for U.S. pharmacy technicians in the past year, bringing average pay to more than $20 an hour. Walmart said it planned to raise the minimum wage for all U.S. hourly workers in its stores and warehouses to $14 next month, from $12.
CVS and Walgreens last year raised their minimum wages to $15 an hour.
Write to Sharon Terlep at sharon.terlep@wsj.com and Sarah Nassauer at Sarah.Nassauer@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
New York City nurses reach tentative agreement with Montefiore Bronx, Mount Sinai Main after 3 days of striking
NEW YORK CITY (WABC) — Nurses at Montefiore and Mount Sinai have reached tentative agreements with the hospital and will return to work Thursday.
The New York State Nurses Association was on strike since Monday, demanding better pay and nurse to patient ratio.
“This is a historic victory for New York City nurses and for nurses across the country. NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we’ve again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes. Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said.
Mount Sinai sent out a short statement saying in part, “Our proposed agreement is similar to those between NYSNA and eight other New York City hospitals. It is fair and responsible, and it puts patients first.”
Nurses say that with this agreement, there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care, not just on paper. New staffing ratios take effect immediately.
According to the nurses, there are more than 500 open positions are Mount Sinai alone.
Meanwhile at Montefiore, their agreement includes a 19 percent raise and 170 nursing positions, an increase in what’s called float pool nurses. This will add more registered nurses and nurse practitioners to the emergency departments.
Nurses also won nursing student partnerships to recruit local Bronx nurses to stay as union nurses at Montefiore for the long-run.
“This is a historic victory for New York City nurses and for nurses across the country. NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, and now we’ve again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes. Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care,” NYSNA President Nancy Hagans said.
Both facilities have agreed to immediate return-to-work agreements so nurses will be back at the bedside with patients today.
Nurses at Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, who had been threatening to strike starting January 17, also reached a tentative deal and withdrew their 10-day strike notice.
Had a tentative agreement not been reached today, Mount Sinai had traveling nurses in the city who would have been ready to start.
As many as 3,500 nurses at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx and about 3,600 at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan walked off the job Monday after last-minute talks to prevent the strike broke down.
“We love our job. We want to take care of our patients. But we just want to do it safely and in a humane way, where we feel appreciated,” one nurse said.
Earlier this week, the union announced that Flushing Hospital Medical Center, Richmond University Medical Center, and BronxCare all approved their contracts.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
ALSO READ | 3 men steal $300,000 from armored truck in Brooklyn
———-
* Get Eyewitness News Delivered
* More New York City news
* Send us a news tip
* Download the abc7NY app for breaking news alerts
* Follow us on YouTube
Submit a tip or story idea to Eyewitness News
Have a breaking news tip or an idea for a story we should cover? Send it to Eyewitness News using the form below. If attaching a video or photo, terms of use apply.
Copyright © 2023 WABC-TV. All Rights Reserved.
FAA cancels New York ground delays triggered by staffing issues
(CNN) — The Federal Aviation Administration has canceled an earlier warning that flights in and out of New York City area airports could be delayed up to two hours Monday night because of a shortage of air traffic controllers.
“The New York City airspace now has some additional staffing, allowing us to cancel the ground delays at Newark Liberty International Airport and John F. Kennedy International. Passengers should continue to check Fly.faa.gov and their airline.”
Earlier in the day, the FAA said flights could be delayed up to two hours due to staffing issues.
“Departure and arrival delays this evening could approach two hours at John F. Kennedy International, New York LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International airports,” the FAA said in a statement.
A publicly available FAA advisory showed staffing issues at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, an air traffic control facility located 50 miles east of Manhattan on Long Island. The FAA advisory said delays were anticipated from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET.
Airlines have pointed at air traffic controller staffing issues as a reason for massive flight cancellations this summer, though the FAA asserts that most delays are because of the airlines.
According to data from flight tracking site FlightAware, 48,000 US flights were canceled between May 27, the Friday before Memorial Day, and August 14. That figure represents 2.3% of the flights scheduled.
Nearly 483,000 US flights were delayed during that period, or about 24% of flights.
Bad weather has compounded other operational challenges this summer.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a CNN interview last week that while weather disrupted a recent weekend’s air traffic,”it shouldn’t have created the kind of ripple effects through the system that it did.
“That is something that to me is an indication that we still have not seen the improvements that we need, that the system is very brittle,” Buttigieg said last week on CNN’s New Day.
This story has been updated with information on the cancellation of the ground delays.
Top image: Travelers wait for flights at LaGuardia Airport in New York on July 1, 2022. (Angus Mordant/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
Airlines are canceling more holiday flights due to staffing shortages
Ahead of the July Fourth weekend, airlines are facing a wave of concern over flight cancellations — and new pressure from Washington to make sure they’re not leaving travelers in the lurch.
Wednesday saw more than 2,000 cancellations in a single day, according to FlightAware data, with uncertainty continuing into the holiday travel season. The surge in canceled flights is particularly bad because it’s happening across all airlines, straining the system’s capacity and leaving many travelers unable to reach their destinations. A Washington Post report on Tuesday detailed the human cost of those cancellations, with travelers sleeping on airport floors or canceling trips altogether.
A deeper look at the data shows cancellations really have increased in recent months, peaking in January with more than 33,000 cancellations in a single month, more than double the equivalent figure from 2019. As holiday travel heats up, many are concerned that the summer’s cancellation numbers will be even higher.
The numbers are still well below the pandemic-driven peak in March and April of 2020, which saw more than 100,000 cancellations per month. But while those cancellations were driven by quarantine rules and a broader falloff in demand, the more recent problems are caused by a shortfall in supply.
Staffing is a particular issue, as airlines struggle to replace the thousands of pilots who took buyouts in 2020 as the industry responded to the pandemic. With those pilots out of the workforce, airlines have had difficulty staffing their planes — and have often had to cancel flights when unable to arrange a crew. As the shortage intensifies, some industry analysts have proposed easing the requirements for pilot certification — including the rule requiring 1,500 hours of flight time before piloting a commercial aircraft.
Politicians have been vocal in demanding fewer cancellations — often while invoking the generous terms of the industry’s $54 billion pandemic bailout.
On Wednesday, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman called on the White House to fine airlines $27,500 for every flight that’s canceled due to known staffing shortages. “Government has a responsibility to hold these airlines accountable,” Fetterman said in a statement. “Taxpayers saved them and now it’s their turn to hold up their end of the deal.”
When asked about Fetterman’s proposal, the Department of Transportation pointed to its ongoing enforcement actions to ensure airlines honor their refund policies. “We share the expectation that, when Americans buy an airline ticket, they will get where they need to go safely, affordably, and reliably,” said department spokesperson Benjamin Halle. “We will continue to work with airlines to meet that expectation, but also not hesitate in using enforcement actions to hold them accountable.”
Sacramento’s teachers union to strike over pay, staffing
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
California teachers with Sacramento’s unified school district will strike on Wednesday after attempts to negotiate with the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) have reportedly failed.
The Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) says the strike is a result of a “severe staffing crisis,” a financial “priorities problem” and issues with health benefits.
In a Tuesday release, the 2,500-member group explained that district negotiators left a Monday meeting “to caucus” and never returned, forcing a state mediator to call off the bargaining session in their absence.
OVER 500 WORKERS AT CALIFORNIA CHEVRON REFINERY GO ON STRIKE
“The district has misplaced priorities and no sense of urgency,” SCTA President David Fisher said in a statement.
The SCTA said that an independent review by a fact-finder chosen by both parties under the auspices of the California Public Employment Relations Board sided with the union on staffing and wage issues.
The district said it had to review the report, but it allegedly refused to address staffing, and the SCTA said it violated ground rules set by the mediator in releasing its proposal in a press release.
The SCTA said that the district’s bargaining team demanded a massive rollback in educators’ health insurance benefits that would force employees to pay up to an additional $12,000 per year for coverage and would use health care savings to fund a “small wage increase.”
“The district now receives over $20,000 per student per year and has a record reserve fund of $125 million dollars. But, rather than use available funds and increased state support to retain and recruit teachers and staff, the district continues to propose concessions,” the teachers wrote. “Meanwhile, SCUSD is short 250 teachers, over 100 substitutes, and 400 school staff. Every day, 3,000 to 5,000 students are warehoused in auditoriums or forced to double- or triple-up in classrooms due to a lack of staffing. Nearly 600 students who have applied for independent study because they are unable to attend school in-person, receive no instruction at all.”
In its own release, the SCUSD said Tuesday that mediation ended Monday shortly after 10 p.m. and that mediators joined a meeting with the district at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday.
GOP CANDIDATES, INCLUDING TWO FORMER TEACHERS, SLAM MINNEAPOLIS TEACHERS UNION AS STRIKE ENTERS 11TH DAY
The district said that at around 8:30 p.m. it learned through media reports that SCTA had concluded the mediation and the mediators ended their meeting with the district negotiations team at 8:36 p.m.
“The district’s negotiations team remains ready to continue negotiations with SCTA, and has offered to continue bargaining throughout the day on Wednesday,” SCUSD wrote.
Comparatively, SCTA tweeted Tuesday that negotiations broke off at 8:15 p.m.
According to the district, its proposal includes 100% health coverage through Kaiser at no cost to employees, a proposal to pay 80% of the cost difference between a Kaiser health plan and a HealthNet plan for one year for employees currently enrolled in HealthNet who choose to continue HealthNet coverage. The proposal also offers $3,000 a year for employees who already have health coverage in lieu of receiving coverage through the district.
There is also an ongoing 2% salary increase, additional paid days for professional learning and increased pay for substitute teachers and nurses.
“Given that SCTA and SEIU are moving forward with a strike, we remain very concerned about our students, their families, and our entire community,” said Christina Pritchett, president of the SCUSD Board of Education. “The current proposals to increase compensation are a reflection of what we can currently afford in our budget. We urge SCTA to return to the bargaining table and give these proposals to increase employee compensation due consideration.”
The strike will last until an agreement is reached.
According to KCRA, Tuesday night was the cutoff before members of the SCTA and Service Employees International Union Local 1021 strike, with the district saying it will close all schools and cancel all sports and extracurricular activities.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
“This is a painful and difficult decision to make, especially when our students have experienced so much trauma and disruption to their learning over the last two years and recognize the ripple effect that school closures have on our entire community,” SCUSD Superintendent Jorge Aguilar wrote in an email. “During this difficult time, please remain in community and know that we will do our best to meet the needs of our district community.”
The station noted that the district had outlined a plan on Monday to provide meals for students who rely on them and that before and after-school child care programs that operate at K-6 school sites will be open during “normal hours.”
CapRadio reported on March 18 that the district had declared an impasse with SCTA in December over COVID-19 policy negotiations and announced it would not lay off any teachers for the 2022-23 school years in March.
Google says Android tablets are the future, starts staffing up new division
Enlarge / Pictured: The future. (Actually this is the Motorola Xoom from 2011.)
Motorola
How serious is Google going to be about Android tablets? The company is making overtures that it cares about the platform again. In addition to getting several major OEMs to start building hardware, Google is building Android 12L, a mid-cycle update of Android dedicated to tablet and foldable functionality. The company’s latest move (first spotted by 9to5Google) is a new job listing for a “Senior Engineering Manager, Android Tablet App Experience.” Get a load of this job description:
We believe that the future of computing is shifting towards more powerful and capable tablets. We are working to deliver the next chapter of computing and input by launching seamless support across our platforms and hero experiences that unlock new and better ways of being productive and creative.
This is a statement the company could have made in 2011 when the iPad launched, but apparently, the company is just now getting the message. How dedicated Google becomes to tablet “experiences” will make or break the company’s second push into tablets. Right now Android 12L seems very conservative on that front, though Google has started some tablet-specific apps with things like the “Entertainment Space” home screen panel.
One of the responsibilities of the job description is “develop roadmaps and run the execution of our ink first hero apps strategy.” Presumably “ink first” means Google is pushing for more focus on pen input. Pen input has long been championed by Samsung, but Android and the Android Google apps have never really made many affordances for styluses. (Chrome OS Pixel devices have often had styluses, but not Android tablets.)
Another tablet development that was just recently noticed comes from Computerworld’s JR Raphael, who pointed out that Android co-founder Rich Miner updated his Linkedin to show “CTO Android Tablets.” So there’s an “Android Tablet” division now? Miner apparently started in this position in March, which also meant re-joining the Android team after leaving in 2010.
Enlarge / Android 12L preview.
If Google would like people to take Android tablets seriously, it will require several years of sustained, quality development from Google. At this point, Android tablets mostly get brought up as the butt of jokes. Google will need to work very hard to prove it is serious about tablets and won’t abandon them again when Android 12L isn’t an overnight success. Does Google still have the stomach—and leadership—to make a longterm commitment to a project, even if the first few public releases aren’t successful?
We saw this pattern with Google’s first swing at Android tablets, where Android 3.0 Honeycomb was a big release, and when that was not instantly successful, Android 4.0 was a smaller tablet release. A release or two later, the tablet improvements stopped and the platform was effectively abandoned. We also saw this with smartwatches: Android Wear was not an overnight success after its first launch, and resources were quickly pulled from the project, leading to stagnation for years. Just like tablets, lately, Google has decided that abandoning a core smart device platform wasn’t such a great idea and is now trying to resurrect Android smartwatches.
For both of these projects, it’s not clear if Google is in it for the long haul or if this is just another temporary burst of interest. Meanwhile, Apple is actually in tablets (and smartwatches) for the long haul, and today’s iPads and iPadOS are the result of 12 years of continual iteration and a significant dedication of resources. If Google wants to catch up, it has a long road ahead of it.
New Mexico’s governor signs up to be volunteer substitute teacher amid staffing shortage
The Democratic governor launched an initiative Wednesday asking state workers and National Guard members to become licensed volunteer substitute K-12 teachers and child care workers. Lujan Grisham has completed the registration to become licensed as a substitute teacher, her press secretary Nora Sackett confirmed to CNN.
The move is an effort to help fill staffing gaps and stave off closures across school districts and child care centers because of the rise in Omicron cases.
Volunteers will have to clear a mandatory background check, complete an online substitute teaching training, and then undergo a typical onboarding process done by the school where they’re placed. The new program speeds up approval of the licensing process to two days. Civil servants and Guard members who are currently involved in critical health care roles or administering vaccines are asked not to participate.
Lujan Grisham, who has no prior experience in education, expects to be placed in an elementary school next week, she told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield on “Newsroom” Saturday.
She said her state was left with no choice but to ask for additional help from the public to get more substitute teachers in New Mexico’s schools.
“There aren’t any other options,” the governor said.
Should a New Mexico school district accept her offer to serve as a substitute, Lujan Grisham says she will donate her services and will not accept payment.
“We’ll have additional information about her placement this upcoming week,” Sackett told CNN. “This work will not require the Lt. Gov. to act as governor.”
The governor is among the 100 — 50 National Guard members and 50 state employees — who have so far signed up for the initiative, according to Lujan Grisham.
CNN has reached out to the New Mexico National Guard.
“The whole goal is certainly not to interrupt the qualified experienced work that is required in our public schools,” Lujan Grisham said on CNN, adding that the aim of the initiative is to “keep schools open and to support educators, parents, and students through the worst of Omicron.”
Since winter break, roughly 60 school districts and charter schools in New Mexico were forced to switch to remote-learning due to staff members testing positive for Covid-19 or having to isolate or quarantine under CDC recommendations, according to the governor’s office.
Also due to staffing shortages, 75 child care centers have partially or completely closed since the start of the year, according to the governor’s office.
Santa Fe Public Schools Superintendent Hilario “Larry” Chavez, whose school district has gone remote, said Wednesday that the initiative will be “instrumental” in helping continue or return to in-person learning and reduce “the stress on our remaining staff who have taken on additional duties.”
“This initiative will help create a stable school environment, as well as help parents who are having to juggle childcare and jobs,” MaryBeth Weeks, the head of New Mexico Parent Teacher Association, said in a statement.
New Mexico Republicans criticized the program and the governor in statements to CNN.
“Given that Lujan Grisham is on her third Education cabinet secretary appointee, it is no wonder that she cannot seem to find a way to keep our schools at full employment. This Governor has single-handedly made a school system that was already struggling, fall even further behind,” Republican state House Minority Leader Jim Townsend said.
Republican state Senate Minority Leader Greg Baca said in a statement: “What New Mexico needs right now is leadership—not political stunts. While we appreciate those willing to step in and teach, let’s call this ‘initiative’ what it really is—a desperate reaction to the crisis created by this governor.”
New Mexico is not the only state facing teacher shortages and implementing extraordinary measures to keep classrooms running, such as asking parents or alumni to become substitute teachers or dispatching office administrators.
CNN’s Andy Rose contributed to this report.