NASSAU COUNTY, FLORIDA, Fla. — Students are heading back to class, but some Florida educators won’t be this year.
The teacher shortage crisis is the biggest issue facing schools across the state, according to the Florida Education Association.
School districts in Northeast Florida lost 1,134 teachers at the end of the last school year. That makes up about 16 percent of the vacancies across the state – totaling 7,000.
Chris Pagel is an elementary school gym teacher who’s starting his 35th year as an educator in Nassau County.
He said many teachers feel overwhelmed with complicated administrative tasks and controversies at the state level.
“The stress level goes way up, and of course, that filters down to the students not getting as good an education and attention that they could be getting,” Pagel said.
Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar says the state is arguably facing the worst teacher shortage in the nation.
Spar says Gov. Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers should have addressed the issue during the last legislative session but did not.
“Teachers and staff are being vilified,” Spar said. “Pay is extremely low and going in the wrong direction, and that is driving people out of the profession.”
Duval County Public Schools lost the most educators in Northeast Florida this year, with 530 vacancies.
The solution? Pagel says to allow teachers to do their jobs.
“It’s harder and harder to just teach,” Pagel said. “We would all be living in nirvana if teachers could go to work every day and just teach and worry about nothing else. Just teach their kids the way they know they need to be taught.”
One former Duval County teacher who wanted to remain anonymous, told First Coast News he left the profession because of "attacks on public education."
First Coast News reached out to the governor’s office for comment. They directed us to the Department of Education.