Teachers have been 'guaranteed' that improvements will be made around the approach to COVID-19 in schools, according to the TUI.
It comes as thousands of school children are restricting movements after being deemed close contacts of confirmed coronavirus cases.
Michael Gillespie is general-secretary of the TUI. He told Newstalk Breakfast the last week put everyone under pressure.
"Last week what we saw was unacceptable and hugely stressful delays for principals seeking information, especially early in the week.
"We made strong representations that this should cease, and we've been guaranteed that improvements would be made."
And he says that the next week or so will show how the Delta variant is spreading.
"Anybody could have saw that surge coming... but what we're waiting for now over the next two weeks is the results of those tests.
"They're going to come after five and 10 days, and we'll see how the Delta variant is spreading.
"And we're waiting to see how that testing now turns into numbers.
"If there's going to be any change in close contact testing, it must be based on sound public health advice - and not because of any deficits in contact tracing - but we need to wait for a while longer.
"We closed schools last May, June when there was a different variant predominant, we had smaller numbers.
"Now we're going back with larger numbers and the Delta variant is the dominant variant.
"We hope that low numbers will be turned into positive cases, but we need the figures to support that."
He says while principals stuck to the health advice regarding testing and tracing, "they didn't get the follow up support - or they felt they didn't get the support - from the public health".
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