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 high school have close to and upwards of 200 students. For most of my career, 150 students seemed like a lot. Now, I have over 180. In a school of over 3,000 students, we have less than four English teachers for seniors. It is not the school's fault. We simply aren't being funded well enough— we are being set up to fail.”
The FEA is now asking lawmakers to increase funding by $2.5 billion a year for the next seven years to address "inadequate salaries," hire more mental health specialists, and address students' academic needs.
ABC Action News spoke with residents in Pinellas County about what's most important to them in the upcoming election
