There are nearly 10,000 openings for teachers and support staff across the state • Florida Phoenix
At the start of the 2024-2025 school year, nearly 10,000 public school teacher and staff positions will be vacant, according to the Florida Education Association.
Of the 9,842 vacancies, 5,007 are apprenticeships and 4,835 are positions for support staff.
The number of vacancies has decreased compared to August 2023 (11,992).
“It should not be lost on anyone that nearly 5,000 classrooms are currently without a professionally trained teacher, potentially impacting over 100,000 students,” Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said in a press release. “In addition, we continue to hear from teachers across the state that classrooms are overcrowded and teachers are desperately scrambling for more desks and chairs.”
Spar said politicians had not made “significant progress” in addressing the shortage.
“The problem remains – Florida is one of the wealthiest states in the U.S. and yet politicians opposed to public education have chosen to keep Florida teachers at the bottom of the nation in terms of average compensation, have made no meaningful progress in addressing the critical teacher shortage, and at the same time have worked hard to denigrate teachers. Voters are watching – and they don’t like what they see,” Spar said.
The FEA data represents a compilation of positions advertised on school district websites. Support staff includes positions such as bus drivers, groundskeepers, janitors, non-specialized teaching assistants and health care workers.
The districts with the largest number of teaching vacancies include Hillsborough with 742, Broward with 606, Palm Beach with 490, Polk with 321 and Lee with 272.
Miami-Dade had 389 apprenticeship openings in August 2023. Currently, that number is 194.
However, Hillsborough has more than 100 additional teaching vacancies than in 2023 – 742 compared to 625 last year.
When the union calculated the numbers for 2024, Palm Beach had over 300 assistant positions open. The county had 579 positions open in 2023 and 884 in 2024.
In Volusia, 216 teaching vacancies were announced in 2023 and 53 in 2024.
The Florida Department of Education has not yet released its number of teacher vacancies for the start of the school year. Last year, vacancies were reported — along with a statement saying the FEA “erroneously” reported 2,000 more vacancies than the department had determined.
Data from the Florida Department of Education shows that 466,233 certifications were administered in the state during the 2022-2023 school year.
According to the department, the greatest need is in classrooms with students with disabilities – that is, providing teachers with certificates in exceptional student education.
The second most sought-after certificates are English, science, mathematics and English for speakers of other languages.
In 2022-2023, teachers in Florida most commonly held degrees in elementary education, followed by English for Speakers of Other Languages, reading, special education, and preschool.
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Why the vacancies?
According to Florida TaxWatch, shortages persist as fewer people enter the workforce. According to Pew Research, 21% of bachelor’s degree graduates in the U.S. worked in education in 1970-1971. In 2019-2020, that number was 4%.
TaxWatch cites low wages, the high cost of living in Florida and the political climate as explanations for the stress caused by vacancies.
“Education is increasingly being used as a weapon as policymakers wrest more control over the curriculum from teachers and give parents more influence over shaping their children’s education,” the TaxWatch report said.
“Recent regulations, which restrict, among other things, what books can and cannot be read, what subjects can and cannot be taught, how issues related to identity and culture are addressed, are leading to a much more politically charged learning environment.”
TaxWatch also points to state initiatives to increase teacher salaries, the Florida Hometown Heroes Housing Program, which provides down payment and graduation cost assistance to veterans, nurses, teachers and police officers, as well as alternative pathways to teaching licensure for veterans, “classical” teachers (emphasizing the Western canon) and the offering of apprenticeships as ways to attract more teachers.
According to the National Education Association (NEA), Florida ranks second in the nation for teacher salaries. The average starting salary for teachers in Florida is $48,286, according to the governor’s office. The national average starting salary for teachers is $44,530, according to the NEA.
The average teacher salary in Florida is $53,098, according to the union, more than $16,000 below the national average of $69,544.
David Finkle, an English teacher at DeLand High School in Volusia County, said teachers in the district have “over 200 students.”
“For most of my career, 150 students seemed like a lot to me,” Finkle said in a press release. “Now I have over 180. In a school with over 3,000 students, we have fewer than four English teachers for the graduating class. That’s not the school’s fault. We’re just not being adequately funded – we’re being set up to fail.”
