Teacher Shortages

The comments by Miguel Cardona came during his tour Thursday of NeoCity Academy in Kissimmee.

Both the Florida Department of Education and Florida Education Association find teacher vacancies are down across the state this year.

A judge ruled in favor of the school district, which filed a lawsuit after county commissioners voted to delay the referendum until 2026.

The lawsuit comes after the county commission unexpectedly voted to delay a tax referendum that would fund teacher salaries by two years.

Kelly Services, one of the country’s largest staffing agencies, says Florida doesn’t have enough substitute teachers headed into the new school year.

FIUTeach at Florida International University aims to reduce the shortage of math and science teachers in Miami-Dade County and beyond — while ensuring educators are subject matter experts. WLRN goes into one of South Florida's oldest high schools to see how the program is working.

Yvonne zum Tobel, freelance reporter for WLRN, said there are currently between 4,000 and 5,000 teacher vacancies in Florida.

Florida universities and school districts are incentivizing college students to become teachers in the highest-need areas. In the WLRN series Role Call, we found these programs are "moving the needle, but only a very, very small amount."

A proposed local property tax increase could generate almost $180 million that would go mainly towards increasing teacher and staff pay.

More than 4,000 teaching positions need to be filled across Florida. In the greater Tampa Bay region, there's about 880 vacancies.

The state also needs almost 3,500 support staff members.

Florida teachers are leaving the state and their profession. They blame unrealistic workloads, restrictive laws and stagnant pay.