There are thousands of teacher vacancies this year in Florida, but the numbers are showing improvement from last year.
The Florida Department of Education and the state’s largest teachers union the Florida Education Association agree: teacher vacancies are down this year compared to last.
FEA President Andrew Spar said at the start of this school year, his group counted about 5,000 open positions in the state, compared to nearly 7,000 open jobs in 2023.
Spar said this improvement is a bit of an optical illusion as it was achieved by consolidating classes and increasing classroom size.
“It's led to more discipline problems in our schools, and we can't effectively do that if we're packing them deep and teaching them cheap,” said Spar.
Spar said big class sizes are bad news for teachers and kids.
“What that means is kids are getting less individualized attention, and in an environment that we've been in where anxiety among students, the mental health of students, and the frustration that so many of our students have coming out of COVID, they are still not, feeling like they've gotten everything they need to be successful,” said Spar.
In a statement, the Florida Department of Education said these gains were made due to higher teacher pay and better support for teachers, along with more teacher training pathways.
Several Central Florida schools are offering expedited and reduced cost teacher education programs in order to boost the number of teachers in Florida. Valencia College is offering a new bachelors in education.
And Daytona State College is offering a special apprenticeship program that can lead to a bachelors in elementary education.
Earlier this year, Governor Ron DeSantis announced $1.25 billion dollars in this year’s budget would go toward teacher pay, which the Florida Education Association said was not enough.
Florida consistently ranks at the bottom of the country for teacher pay. The state currently ranks in 50th place, with only West Virginia ranking lower.
Central Florida Public Media reached out to districts for a count of current teacher vacancies, as of August 20:
- Orange: 88
- Osceola: 73
- Volusia: 27
- Seminole: 41
- Brevard: Did not respond
- Marion: 114
- Polk: Did not respond
- Flagler: 19
Check out the Florida Education Association data, which shows how vacancies compared the first week of school this year compared to last (county by county):
Copyright 2024 Central Florida Public Media
