The Tally is a Suncoast Searchlight series that examines issues affecting communities across the Suncoast and Florida through data.
When the School District of Manatee County hired Carina Chindamo as an autism spectrum disorder teacher at Rogers Garden-Bullock Elementary in 2022, a principal had to file an out-of-field teacher request because she lacked certification in some of the grade-level materials required for the position.
While not the norm, this wasn’t rare.
Across Florida, 11% of courses are taught by teachers who aren’t certified in the appropriate field, according to the state Department of Education. It’s one way of managing teacher shortages that have persisted across the state in recent years and are especially acute in challenging subject areas, such as special education.
A Manatee district spokeswoman said the district strives to hire qualified teachers and ensure that those who need additional certifications obtain them in accordance with state rules.
But in recent years, the loosening of job requirements came alongside gaps in the vetting process for school employees, a Suncoast Searchlight and Bradenton Herald investigation into teacher and staff misconduct found.
In February 2024, Chindamo and an aide allegedly tied a 7-year-old child to a chair for an hour during recess — a practice that is not condoned by the district’s professional crisis management training. Chindamo and the aide were arrested and charged with false imprisonment. Both former school employees pleaded no contest in court and were released under supervision.
When investigating this incident and other cases of teacher and staff misconduct in Manatee County schools over the last two years, Searchlight and Herald reporters wanted to understand if teacher shortages contributed to the frequency of cases in the district.
A reporter requested detailed vacancy data for all districts from the Florida Department of Education. The department announced in July that teacher vacancies had dropped 18% from the previous school year, but took two months to respond to the public records request.
When it did, the response missed the mark: The agency provided links to reports on high-demand teaching areas, rather than district-by-district vacancy numbers. The reporter notified the department that the public records request had not been fulfilled and is waiting for the agency’s response.
But data compiled by Florida’s largest school employee union gives a partial picture of what’s happening. Suncoast Searchlight analyzed that data and found that teacher vacancies across Florida have declined recently, however, imitations in the data make it hard to make comparisons or identify critical areas of need and how they are affecting students and classrooms.
Dan Goldhaber, a labor economist and vice president at the American Institutes for Research, a nonprofit research organization, said that nationwide vacancies are less acute now than they were a few years ago.
One reason is that the unemployment rate has crept up, so people who were not going after teaching jobs a few years ago might be more willing now. Similarly, in a tighter labor market, teachers are less likely to leave positions. And finally, pandemic relief funds for schools have expired, and with it some positions that were either created or saved by the cash infusion have been eliminated.
But there were still over 2,800 unfilled teaching positions across Florida this year, according to Searchlight’s analysis, and the needs can vary greatly within districts and teaching areas.
“I’m very concerned about teacher shortages,” said Pat Barber, president of the Manatee Education Association, the teachers and paraprofessionals union. “We have a very difficult time hiring teachers because, first of all, Florida is 50th in the nation in [average] pay for teachers. And the restrictions on what teachers can teach and how teachers can teach make it very difficult for people to actually exercise their expertise and do their jobs in the classroom.”
Here’s a look at what we do and don’t know about teacher vacancies in the Suncoast and Florida – and what that means for students and staff.
More than half of Florida school districts saw a decline in teacher vacancies at the start of this school year compared to a year earlier. That includes all three Suncoast school districts.
Teacher vacancies declined in the Suncoast, but haven’t disappeared
More than half of Florida school districts saw a decline in teacher vacancies at the start of this school year compared to a year earlier. That includes all three Suncoast school districts.
The Florida Education Association data doesn’t show how many roles existed in every district, so it’s impossible to calculate what percentage of roles are vacant. That would allow for better comparisons among districts and over time.
In some cases, year-over-over changes reflect fluctuations in workforce size more than recruitment efforts.
In Sarasota County, a reduction in overall positions this year contributed to a 90% plunge in vacancies. Last year, Sarasota topped Suncoast districts with 106 openings. This year, before school began, administrators eliminated roles and reassigned about 133 employees to address budget challenges, according to the Herald-Tribune. Superintendent Terry Connor said no employees were laid off. The district’s financial constraints included shrinking enrollment, expiration of pandemic relief funds and rising costs that outpaced state funding.
Sarasota County Schools had just 11 unfilled positions at the start of this school year.
Melodie Deeds, a retired Sarasota principal, said many of the eliminated positions were specialist roles, such as reading coaches, and those teachers have gone back into classrooms.
“It was a huge change this year with positions,” Deeds said. “It lessens the quality of services provided, yes 100%, but you don’t have a teacher shortage.”
Manatee ranks among Florida’s worst for teacher vacancies, but DeSoto has more per student
Manatee schools had 66 open teacher positions at the start of this school year, a slight dip from last year’s 74. That puts the district 15th in the state for teacher vacancies out of 66 districts with available data.
District spokeswoman Jamie Carson said vacancy data is a “snapshot in time” and that a new executive director of human resources is leading “creative” efforts to attract and keep talent.
“Recruitment and retention is not a once a year thing. It’s year round,” Carson said.
The district’s career portal listed 64 instructional openings this week.
Starting teacher pay in Manatee County is only slightly lower than Sarasota: $59,239 vs. $60,000. In DeSoto County, where cost of living is much lower, base teacher pay is $50,000.
DeSoto County, a much smaller district than either Manatee or Sarasota, had only 10 teacher openings this year and 15 last year.
But when factoring in enrollment, a small number of openings can loom larger: DeSoto County had 2.5 teacher vacancies per thousand students this year, Manatee had 1.5, and Sarasota had less than one.
Barber, the MEA president, said vacancies affect the whole school because other teachers and staff “have to take up the slack, frequently doing lesson plans or helping substitute.” If no substitute teacher is available, students may be split into other classrooms, adding to teachers’ workloads, she said.
Goldhaber, the researcher, said large classes aren’t great but have less impact on student success than teacher quality, so dividing students into other classrooms may be a better response than long-term substitutes.
Hiring needs can be concentrated in specific schools and teaching specialties
While vacancies declined in the Suncoast, more than 20 Florida school districts saw increases in teacher vacancies this year. A majority of those were small districts with less than 10,000 students enrolled.
Goldhaber said aggregate data can mask acute shortages at specific schools even within districts or within teaching subjects.
Deeds, the retired Sarasota County principal, echoed that.
“The more desirable schools in the district had an easier time recruiting,” she said. “It’s hard for me to say that, but it’s my experience.”
Schools in wealthier neighborhoods often have more money from parent groups and more actively engaged parents, which makes them more attractive to teachers. When job evaluations and bonuses are tied to student performance, that adds to teachers’ desire to work in certain schools, Deeds said.
When she worked at Venice Elementary, for example, there were rarely openings. “You would have the highest quality teachers applying – and you would get a lot,” she said. A high-poverty school, meanwhile, might get no applicants.
Usually, vacancies were filled with long-term substitutes, according to Deeds, but she recalled a time during her tenure at Laurel Nokomis Elementary when some classes were doubled up with one teacher until positions were filled.
“Those were rough years,” she said.
Some certification areas are also harder to fill than others. The Florida Department of Education reported high demand in the following areas: special education, technology education, English, math, science and English for speakers of other languages. “High demand” is based on subjects where “larger than typical” proportions of instructors are teaching outside their certification.
Goldhaber said it’s important for vacancy data to be broken down into job types and include the total workforce numbers so that policy solutions target the right problems. For example, some states and districts have tuition programs or other incentives for high demand certification areas.
In Manatee County, support staff vacancies are more acute — and growing.
Teachers aren’t the only ones who make schools run. Support staff includes classroom aides, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, maintenance workers and more. FEA data shows thousands of vacancies in these roles across the state.
Locally, in both Sarasota and DeSoto schools, support staff vacancies declined this year and were relatively few. But in Manatee County, unfilled support positions increased from 88 last year to 106 this school year.
As with teachers, it’s difficult to evaluate these differences fully without knowing total workforce sizes.
Barber said that support staff vacancies make difficult jobs even harder. For example, if an aide role in a special education classroom goes unfilled, “That leaves the teacher who needs the extra help in the ESE [exceptional student education] classroom shorthanded.”
In Manatee County, paraprofessionals start at $16.10 per hour. In Sarasota County, most paraprofessionals start at $17.67 per hour. Deeds said that school culture matters a lot for retention, and employees who love where they work can be great recruiters.
Deeds said that school culture matters a lot for retention, and employees who love where they work can be great recruiters.
Goldhaber said that although he wouldn’t describe teacher vacancies as a crisis, he’s concerned by studies that have found waning interest in becoming a teacher over the last two decades.
“I worry about the future, because teacher quality really does matter,” Goldhaber said. “There’s all these studies that connect the teachers that you have today with long term life outcomes. And so we shouldn’t be treating teachers as just warm bodies. We really need people who are smart and dedicated and well meaning to be interested in this profession.”
Kara Newhouse is an investigative data reporter for Suncoast Searchlight. Email Kara at kara@suncoastsearchlight.org
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee and DeSoto counties. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org.
Editor's note: Suncoast Searchlight says it does not use generative AI in its stories. If you have questions about their policies or content, contact Executive Editor-In-Chief Emily Le Coz at emily@suncoastsearchlight.org.
