More than 500 staff from the Education Department have been pulled out of its head office in East Perth and redeployed to teach in schools as COVID-19 decimates the ranks of teachers.
Western Australia is set to surpass 700,000 COVID-19 infections since the beginning of the pandemic, and one in 10 of those cases is currently infected with the virus, having tested positive in the past week.
Schools have long been one of the hardest-hit settings and staffing shortages continue to be a major problem, with relief teachers in unprecedented demand.
Education Minister Sue Ellery insisted the system was managing well, considering the challenges.
"Look, it is tight, staffing is tight, as it is in every workplace across Western Australia right now," she said.
"We asked everybody who is working in head office and the kind of satellite Department of Education sites, who was registered to teach, to make themselves available to leave central office and teach.
"And people are doing that. As at last Friday, we had 516 out of central office and other sites assisting in schools."
Ms Ellery denied the removal of close contact rules and the indoor mask mandate was poorly timed, and said it would be worse if this level of pressure had come during the height of the flu season.
But she urged people to take precautions as winter approached.
"We're not preventing anyone from wearing a mask, and we're not preventing students and staff in schools from wearing a mask," the Education Minister said.
"We say, 'If you cannot socially distance, you should seriously think about wearing a mask'.
"And many of them are."
Relief teachers hard to find
Independent Schools Association of WA chair and Scotch College principal Alec O'Connell said schools were coping, but each morning presented a challenge to find relief staff.
"One school I spoke to recently had 11 relief teachers in on any given day," Dr O'Connell said.
"Most colleagues I talk to are finding relief very challenging at the moment, and that doesn't matter what size school you are, but I imagine for regional schools and smaller schools it would be even more challenging.
"A lot of schools do have their regular relief teachers, which is really important, but I think schools have found it's really hard to even access those, with some of their regular relief teachers also off with COVID."
Dr O'Connell said schools were regularly amalgamating classes and having other staff, including principals, step in to teach.
But he said teachers had become well-practised at leaving detailed lesson plans and, after periods working from home, students were experienced at adapting.
Parents wary as COVID strikes
Perth father of three school-age children Tom O'Halloran said his family had just gone through COVID-19 and they were wary of other illnesses going around.
"We had a touch of gastro before we had COVID, and we were just about to get our flu jabs," he said.
"So we are going to go ahead and do that, because winter is coming up and we don't really want to be struck down again."
Mother-of-two Linna Tang said she had noticed a few illnesses going around families at her children's primary school, which she was keen to avoid after also recently having had COVID-19.
"There's a bit of flu, and lots of sniffly noses, so there's definitely things going around," she said.
"COVID was quite disruptive with work. We run a little business and it was hard having to shut the doors.
"That was for two and a half weeks, and we just reopened this week. It was tough having to dig into our savings."
Another father, Tyson Cherrie, said while COVID-19 had been disruptive, the removal of the mask mandate had made school a little more normal for his son.
"I realised a couple of weeks ago that Alfie hadn't actually seen his teacher's face until then, and vice versa," he said.
Almost all of Western Australia's COVID-19 cases have come in the past six months, and about half were recorded in just the past six weeks.
