Gabrielle Russon
Florida’s teacher vacancies for the upcoming 2025-26 school year dropped by nearly 18%, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“We are attracting teachers,” DeSantis said on Wednesday. “We’ve expanded a number of pathways for qualified individuals.”
DeSantis spoke about education at a roundtable in Tampa alongside allies that included Florida Department of Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia, and New College President Richard Corcoran. Also joining was Jaime Suarez, Florida’s 2025 Teacher of the Year, selected from Challenger K-8 School of Science and Mathematics in Hernando County.
The United States is facing a teacher shortage, a problem that has been growing for years.
“From urban to rural and red states to blue, school districts across the United States are challenged by teacher shortages. Last year alone, there were more than 400,000 teacher positions either unfilled or filled by teachers not fully certified for their assignments, representing about one in eight of all teaching positions nationally,” according to an article published in late March by the Learning Policy Institute, which studied the crisis.
DeSantis brought up the different ways Florida is tackling the problem. The budget he signed last month included $1.5 billion earmarked for teacher raises.
Other financial incentives for teachers include going through a civics training course, which pays a $3,000 bonus.
“We’ve done millions and millions of dollars in bonuses for our teachers,” DeSantis said.
In addition, Florida’s state-sponsored Teacher of the Year program pays the top educator in each school district a $10,000 prize. The semifinalists get $20,000, while Suarez took home the $50,000 award.
DeSantis highlighted the pipeline to bring new educators into the field.
“We have our teacher apprenticeship program. Right now, more than 80 individuals are receiving on-the-job training from veteran teachers while they pursue their teaching certification, and nearly 500 more have applied for the program,” DeSantis said. “More than 100 military veterans have begun their teaching career through a temporary teaching certificate, through our military veterans certification pathway, and nearly 700 more have applied for the program.”
The roundtable carried an anti-union sentiment as DeSantis and the other state officials complained about the national teachers’ unions, which DeSantis lamented are taking on “trendy left-wing policy” and carry a liberal agenda.
DeSantis said Wednesday he is pushing for teachers’ unions to pay the teachers their salary increases without delay or using it for contract negotiation leverage.
DeSantis and his administration are increasingly at odds with public school supporters who accuse Republicans of diverting public funding from public schools in favor of private school vouchers. Others take issue with recent laws passed in Florida that make it easier for adults to challenge books in school libraries, including classics like literature by adolescent coming-of-age fiction writer Judy Blume, under the guise that it is pornographic.
