Parents continue to vent their frustration with the Williamsville Central School District, following a series of events that included placing the superintendent on leave, and a lack of teachers to start school.
Parents and students protested the rocky start to the school year outside the district offices Monday night.
The district said it needed more teachers after more than 100 resigned or took leaves of absence in response to the handling of the reopening plan.
The district then announced it would scrap the hybrid learning plan for middle and high schoolers, meaning those students will now be fully remote.
Now, 43 people who applied to help fill the gap in teachers will not be hired. The district says because of the switch to fully remote, the extra staff is no longer needed.
Some parents tell us they want their kids back in school as soon as possible. Parents also say they want to sit down with the superintendent and board to learn how they can help.
"In talking to our students who were in class for four days last week (and) there wasn't a shortage of teachers in the schools to work with that,” said district parent Steve Siffringer. “So it leads us as parents, well what is the issue? What's the problem?”
There's something systemically wrong here, but our biggest focus until the kids are back in school is what can we do, how fast can we make that transition, and how can we make it so we don't have any more false starts this year," said parent Jonathan Rich.
The acting superintendent responded to the concerns on social media.
He says committees have been created to address several aspects of remote learning, and find the best model for students.