It’s not just COVID-19 that’s closing schools — it’s a lack of substitute teachers. The shortage has reached crisis levels in some districts. – Chicago Tribune*

Given the steep challenges school districts are facing trying to find substitute teachers during the pandemic, officials at the Illinois State Board of Education recently launched an emergency program to allow “unlicensed persons of good character” to serve at schools as “supervisors, chaperones or sponsors,” either as volunteers or for pay, during the declared public health emergency.