ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — We are months into the school year, and many Tampa Bay schools still struggle to hire teachers. There are hundreds of teacher positions that remain vacant. In some school districts, it's been a worsening issue in recent months.
"We actually think it's going to be even more problematic when we return to school in January," Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, said.
In Sarasota County, the school district started the year with 100 teacher vacancies. Now, they have an additional 13 openings.
"So people are retiring early, they're moving up dropped dates up to maybe this winter break, or the end of this year," Rex Ingerick, the Sarasota Classified Teachers Association president, said. "I think people are getting burned out."
Sarasota County School District is one of three in the Tampa Bay area with more teacher openings now than at the start of the school year.
"I think we're losing existing people because they're, they're tired of, of the constant battles," Ingerick said. "They're getting a lot of pressure from parents, [it] used to be that our profession was respected."
The majority of Tampa Bay area school districts have made a positive dent in the total number of teacher vacancies.
Counties are getting creative in how they fill their openings. In Pasco County, it's through the cultural exchange program many teachers are hired.
"We work with a company that gets us in touch with teachers from other countries, who are highly educated," Steve Hegarty, the communications director for Pasco County Schools, said. "And they can fill some of the gaps that we have; we have about 50 of those now"
State leaders recently created new ways for veterans to teach. Over the summer, Governor Ron DeSantis signed the Military Veterans Certification Pathway Program into law. The program enables veterans to teach without a bachelor's degree.
Across nine Tampa Bay area school districts, two veterans have been hired through the program.
"It's what we expected it would make little impact," Spar said. "Quite honestly, you have to address the underlying issues right now. As I said, we have to address pay, we have to address respect, we have to address the issue of trusting and valuing teachers and staff."
The program is one of the multiple routes the state has available to become a teacher.
Through the veterans' certification program, seven veterans have been hired across the state of Florida, according to the Department of Education.
"As of September 1, the total number of teacher vacancies in Florida was 4,442 as reported by school districts," the DOE shared in an email. "For context – Florida has roughly 185,000 teachers and the state’s vacancies on September 1st represented approximately 2.4% of teaching positions, which is also around 1.2 open positions per school on average."
To learn more about the Military Veterans Certification Program, or to apply, click here.
Malique Rankin is a general assignment reporter with 10 Tampa Bay. You can email her story ideas at mrankin@10tampabay.com and follow her Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages.
