ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A program to recruit military veterans without college degrees to help backfill Florida’s growing teacher shortage has helped hire 10 applicants so far.
The Military Veterans Certification Pathway program launched this summer makes it easier for military veterans to become teachers. If certain criteria are met, veterans can receive a five-year temporary education certificate while they finish their bachelor’s degree.
But since August, just 10 veterans have been hired out of more than 500 applications the Florida Department of Education confirms it has received.
Across nine Tampa Bay-area school districts, two veterans have been hired through the program— in Citrus and Manatee counties.
A department spokesperson explained applications go through a lengthy review process. All applications go into a queue before reaching Bureau of Educator Certification staff members who determine if the applicant meets all requirements and is indeed eligible via the pathway.
Candidates with completed applications are then issued statements of eligibility, which they can then take to individual school districts or a charter school to complete the hiring process.
“Therefore, just because over 500 applications have been received by the BEC, this does not mean that all applications have been reviewed, nor does it mean the applications contain all the required documents,” department spokesperson Cassie Palelis told 10 Tampa Bay.
Statewide, more than 4,000 teaching positions need to be filled, a figure that's double what it was prior to the pandemic.
In the Tampa Bay region, where hundreds of teachers are needed, some districts report they have more vacancies now than they did at the beginning of this school year.
Critics like the president of the Florida Education Association, the state's teachers' union, have argued a pathway program for veterans does little to address the underlying issues causing the shortage.
“We expected it would make little impact,” Spar told 10 Tampa Bay in December. “We have to address pay, we have to address respect, we have to address the issue of trusting and valuing teachers and staff.”
Florida was recently ranked No. 48 in the nation in average public school teacher pay, according to the National Education Association.
The program is one of the multiple routes the state has available to become a teacher.
Palelis pushed back on the notion of a large teacher shortage in Florida, calling it a "myth."
Of the state’s roughly 185,000 teachers, vacancies represent approximately 2.4% of teaching positions, according to Palelis. That’s about 1.2 open positions per school on average, which is less than half the nationwide average of three unfilled teaching positions per school, according to survey results released by the U.S. Department of Education last August.