iPad Air has Touch ID enabled, but still requires passcode to unlock everytime

I recently got an iPad Air 5th generation (Wi-Fi, 256gb) for school, and as prompted, I set up both a passcode and a few different fingerprints with Touch ID.

At first, everything worked as expected and I was able to unlock the iPad with my fingerprint using Touch ID. However, now, for the past few weeks, I have had this annoying issue where every single time I wake the iPad, I have to type in the passcode (Your passcode is required to enable Touch ID) and can't use Touch. Even if I open it with the passcode, immediately put it to sleep, and try to open it again, it STILL wants the passcode. The only thing that briefly fixed it was completely turning the iPad off and back on, but it still only lasted for a few hours before requiring the passcode exclusively again.

Oddly, the App Store still accepts my Touch ID just fine when downloading or purchasing content. As far as I know, there shouldn't be any security issues causing it to exclusively require the passcode -- I have not had failed log in attempts and I have only used fingerprints that I registered with the iPad.

Any advice that could hopefully fix this would be amazing! It's not the worst issue to have, but it's definitely an annoying little inconvenience that I would love to solve. Thank you!