HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — Between new school boundaries and new leadership, there have been lots of changes at Hillsborough County Schools.
“The message number one is welcome back. It’s been a long summer,” said Hillsborough County interim superintendent Van Ayres.
While Van Ayres is new to the superintendent role, he’s not new to the district.
Ayres has been working with Hillsborough County Schools for more than two decades.
He’s the new interim superintendent until next July while the school board conducts a nationwide search for a new superintendent.
"This being year 27 in the school district for me, I’m at a place where I really understand this school district, and I can everything that we’ve kind of built upon and move forward,” said Ayres.
He has some big goals for students as he takes on this new role.
“We inspire to be the number one school district in the state of Florida,” said Ayres.
Ayres wants to focus on academic achievement, improving reading and math scores, creating an environment to push students, and improving the graduation rate.
“For me, it’s really about in the end too with our graduate rates, is getting to a place in this district to where our graduation rates are in the 90 percents,” said Ayres.
Heading into the new school year, Ayres will also face some challenges— including an ongoing teacher shortage like many districts nationwide continue to deal with.
At last check, Hillsborough has about 455 teacher vacancies — the most in our area.
“At this point, coming from a place where we were at the beginning of June, we had over 1,000 teacher vacancies. Our principals have worked extremely hard. We’ve gotten that number down to 455 now,” said Ayres.
The district plans to continue focusing on recruiting and retaining staff to fill as many roles as possible into the new school year.
"I’m a former classroom teacher. Getting to a place where we pay teachers and get them to an opportunity to where we attract them because of the culture we provide in Hillsborough County,” said Ayres.
As families make their final preps ahead of the first day on Thursday, Ayres said the district is ready for students to return.
“There’s nothing like the enthusiasm and energy for the first day of school and the excitement. My challenge to all of my staff is you got to take this energy and enthusiasm that we have right now and you keep it going all year long,” said Ayres.