Manatee County schools trying to fill 100 open teacher positions

MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WWSB) - The new school year is right around the corner and the Manatee County School District is still working hard to get more teachers into its classrooms.

Across the state, more than 9,000 teachers are needed in classrooms. In Manatee County, district leaders are facing the same woes.

“We are experiencing shortages of our employees in our school system, just like everyone else,” Manatee County School District Deputy Superintendent Doug Wagner said.

Wagner explained the district is shy by about 100 teachers along with other support staff members. However, he notes this is spread across all 50 of the county’s schools, so that means there’s a small handful missing from each campus.

All told, it’s not enough to derail any lesson plans.

“The current staff can surely pick up those students that are there as well,” he said. “So, every child will start the school with a teacher in their classroom.”

Of course, more would be better. To try to make up some of the gap, the district has been putting its best foot forward, hosting at least 15 job fairs throughout the summer trying to appeal to educators to take their career to the Suncoast.

We asked Wagner what’s driving the shortages locally, and he says much of it has to do with the location.

Manatee County has become a popular destination with more and more families moving here each year. Naturally, the new traffic brings more students onto campuses, which requires more teachers to instruct them.

“We’re seeing more of it being a need for teachers as being because people are migrating down to this part of the state more so than maybe other parts of the state,” Wagner said.

We also reached out to the Sarasota County Schools to check out its numbers, but we haven’t heard back.

If you’re interested in working for the Manatee County School District as a full or part-time teacher or as a member of the support staff, you can research openings by clicking here.