Nearly 10,000 teaching and education staff positions remain open in Florida, even as students went back to school this week. That’s according to data compiled by the Florida Education Association, the largest labor union in the Southeast.
The FEA found that nearly every district in Florida has open positions in elementary education, ESE, and speech-language pathology with “no significant improvement” in the vacancies for education staff professionals.
According to the data, there are currently 5,007 instructional vacancies and 4,835 education support staff vacancies. There is also a need for teacher aides for non-ESE students, as well as bus drivers and substitute teachers.
“English teachers need reasonable class loads so they can grade student writing. The class size amendment, when it was being followed, helped make that possible. But now we don’t have enough teachers,” David Finkle, a high school English teacher At DeLand High School, said in the FEA press release. “Teachers at my …