JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Clay County is on the hunt to hire 170 new teachers to fill vacancies in the district.
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“We just want people who are friendly, love kids, want to become a teacher,” said Clay Superintendent David Broskie.
Clay Schools isn’t alone, according to the Florida Education Association, there were more than 4,000 teaching vacancies statewide as of January.
Broskie said salaries can be a challenge, but they have improved in recent years.
“I think it becomes a challenge when we want to retain teachers,” said Broskie.
But a new report published by the National Education Association suggests Florida continues to fall behind on teacher pay.
While the state ranks 16th in the nation for starting teacher pay, at just over $53,000, Florida ranked 50th out of 51 for average teacher pay.
“Florida in these rankings was 36th in the nation in 2010,” said Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar.
Spar argued that low pay is one of the main obstacles to hiring and retaining teachers in the Sunshine State.
“The reason we have this massive teacher and staff shortage is because pay is so bad and it’s so bad because Florida refuses to invest,” said Spar.
This year, the legislature funded teacher salary increases to the tune of $1.2 billion.
More than $4 billion has gone towards increasing teacher pay since 2019.
A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Education released an email statement:
“The bogus NEA report does not consider a variety of factors, such as cost of living and state income tax. We also have no way to verify that the union is accurately collecting and reporting teacher salaries and not artificially inflating the data with benefits and other forms of compensation.”
Still, Spar contends the state’s teacher pay ranking proves the funding isn’t moving the needle far enough.
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