Florida Teachers Are Leaving Their Jobs For Something New | 2022
The new school year has just begun in Central Florida. However, this year, classrooms will look vastly different than the years before as more and more teachers are leaving their jobs. A ton of schools are facing shortages of teachers in the classroom. A lot of school districts are seeing vacancies as children continue to walk into their classrooms.
At the beginning of this school year, Orange County Public School officials are reporting over 100 teacher vacancies. A poll by the National Education Association show that over 50% of teachers will depart from their career sooner than they originally anticipated. Some of the teachers in questions have stated that teachers are leaving their jobs for new careers in the private sector.
Why Are Teachers Leaving Their Jobs?
This isn’t the first year that schoolteachers, even those with over a decade in the industry, say that the school year will be different than previous years. Actually, this happens quite frequently but not to the same extent as this year. Although the basics of things like math, English, and science remain the same, everything else will be different. Even long-term educators will be trading in crowded hallways for new professions or virtual teaching positions.
Teachers are becoming exhausted of trying to remain optimistic among all the negative aspects of their environment. Some teachers are even finding work as private teachers for single families who have also pulled their children out of the public school system. It seems like once our educators get a taste of other professions, like freelance writing, they say goodbye to our public school system.
It’s Not Only Orange County
It isn’t only Orange County that is having trouble retaining their educators. Osceola county has reported that they have even more teacher vacancies than Orange County with almost 200 empty teaching slots. Seminole County is also looking to fill about 60 full-time positions and 24 other professional positions. Some seem to think that morale and environment play a major role in our educators’ decisions to leave the industry. Stress over standardized testing scores has also been cited as a major concern for why teachers leave their jobs for something new.
The school administration officials have either praised or scorned teachers based on the performance of their pupils. Most teachers seem to think this is an unfair comparison. Because each class contains different students, each with different test taking abilities, this didn’t seem like a fair assessment.
As of now, the future of Central Florida’s educational crisis is unclear. As more and more teachers exit stage left due to their everyday circumstances, who will fill the gap? It’s clear that something needs to change and only time will tell how this issue will be addressed.
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