As school starts, is there a teacher or staff shortage in Manatee County and Bradenton?
On Wednesday, Bradenton area students return to school, and getting up early isn’t the only thing they’ll have to get used to going into the new school year.
Some of them will have to adjust to larger class sizes and fewer support staff because not enough positions could be filled in time for the new semester.
An nationwide teacher and school staff shortage will impact families in Manatee County, just the same as everywhere else in the U.S.
At the start of the 2021-22 school year, the School District of Manatee County only had 18 open teacher positions it needed to fill.
Heading into the 2022-23 school term, the district has close to 50 teacher vacancies and 196 open support staff positions as of Aug. 9.
Florida as a whole has over 8,000 open teacher positions, according to Today.com, an NBC news outlet.
Over the summer, the Manatee school district hosted weekly job fairs at the Wakeland support center to try to recruit and hire new teacher candidates and support staff like bus drivers, bus attendants and food service workers.
Although they haven’t fulfilled all of those positions, they are still pushing toward that goal.
“We’re hiring every day, we still have applications processing right now,” Manatee County School District Deputy Superintendent Doug Wagner told the Bradenton Herald on Thursday. “With over 50 schools, we have approximately 50 openings, so we’re looking good as far as teacher vacancies in our school system.”
More students = More need for teachers
Wagner also said the county did a good job of retaining teachers from last year, but the influx of people moving into the district from out of state requires them to hire even more.
“We’re seeing growth in Manatee County,” he said. “All the new people moving here who have children, their children go to our schools so, it creates the need for more teachers.”
Manatee County has nearly 3,000 teachers at over 50 schools, ranging from elementary, middle and high schools as well as a technical college.
The district plans to deal with the teacher vacancies by divvying students among the available teachers.
For example, if a school has four fifth-grade teachers but needs an additional one, the school will take those students and disperse them among the four teachers. Then, own once a new teacher comes in, those students would be moved to a classroom of their own.
Even though teachers are coming into the classrooms late, Wagner feels it’s better to wait and make sure each student is in the classroom of the right size and a certified person is teaching.
“They might be getting here a little late, but it’s the right thing to do for our students so they have the correct number of students in the classroom,” he said.
Classroom limits
Here are the maximum numbers of students allowed in Florida classrooms, according to the Florida Department of Education:
- 18 students in pre-K through 3rd grade
- 22 students in 4th through 8th grade
- 25 students in 9th through 12th grade
While class size is one concern, parents may also worry about having their child change classes months into the school year and the challenges that come with transitioning from one teacher to another.
“I’ve been there with my children and they transitioned pretty well,” Wagner said. “This is why we’re hiring people who are certified and ready to go.”
While many of the new students are coming from out of state, the majority of new teachers being hired also are from out of state. They also are used to teaching later in the year, which Wagner feels is beneficial because the teachers are already “in the mindset.”
The district did say they also would like to employ more people who live here.
Anyone interested in working as a teacher or support staff like bus drivers, bus attendants or food service can apply at: https://www.manateeschools.net/careers
