The Mountain View–Los Altos Union district is at a “critical juncture” for staffing, with just shy of 40 staff members quarantining with COVID district-wide, Associate Superintendent Leyla Benson said this morning. 

At the moment, state education code only allows school districts to switch to remote learning if they can demonstrate that there’s insufficient staffing to run in-person instruction, and that they’ve exhausted all other staffing options.

Benson said that thus far, the district has been able to cover all staff absences with substitutes and peers — which isn’t “necessarily a sustainable solution” — and that she’s unsure if the district will reach a point where it can no longer staff its classrooms.

She was also unsure of the likelihood that the district will be forced to transition to remote learning.

“Other districts have said they’re at that [critical staffing] juncture and yet [have] not been approved [by the county],” Benson said. “I don’t know what the criteria is — it’s unclear. And I don’t know if our trajectory is continuing to increase. I don’t know where we are on the curve.”

Benson will address the board at its regularly scheduled meeting tonight in a COVID update. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the district board room at 1299 Bryant Avenue, Mountain View, CA 94040.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that 100 teachers were quarantining district-wide. The figure is just under 40 staff members.