Why it matters: Staffing shortages are leading school districts to look for “bodies in a room to babysit kids” as last-ditch efforts to keep their doors open, one education researcher told Axios.

Driving the news: Districts in Texas, Idaho and Colorado are asking parents to fill in as substitute teachers, while officials in New Mexico asked the state’s National Guard to step in.

In Kansas, an emergency declaration eliminated college credit hours as a requirement for substitute teachers.

Staffing shortages are made worse by a waning substitute teacher force, many of whom left the profession during the pandemic.