COVID, we have seen this large surge of students continuing to be absent or continuing to be late for school,” White observes. “That has really increased dramatically over time. We’re trying to better define what chronic absenteeism is and making sure that there is support for our school leaders and our schools to help address that situation.” THE TEACHER PIPELINE CRISIS Florida’s teacher shortage has evolved from a manageable concern into a full-scale crisis affecting every district statewide. With over 4,000 unfilled positions and the state ranking 50th nationally in teacher pay, administrators face mounting pressure to staff classrooms while maintaining educational quality.The shortage forces difficult decisions about course offerings and student support services. “FASA as an organization has been talking about a teacher shortage or recruitment and retention for eight to 10 years,” White reveals.“I can recall a time when we were short 500 teachers in the state of Florida, and of course post COVID that number being in the thousands.” Current data shows the situation has deteriorated further, with 7,571 total vacancies including support staff positions midway through the school year. Retention strategies have become as crucial as recruitment efforts.“We know that the more teachers have a foundation in teaching practices and feel supported in their classrooms by administrators, by parents, and then certainly that classroom management of engagement of students, they’re more likely to stay,” White explains. “We have tried to prioritize and support our leaders in building cultures within their school so that those teachers are able to stay.” Alternative certification pathways now supply increasing numbers of educators. “More and more of our teachers are coming from what we would call an alternative pathway in that they are not going through the college of education at a university,” White notes.“Instead they’re majoring in something outside of that world but coming to the profession and then require additional supports from not only our school-based leaders, but also the district in making sure that we get them to certification.” make sure that our students and our staff are as safe as possible when they’re on our campuses,” White emphasizes.“We’re trying to make sure that we have appropriate people on campus to help support safe campuses. In Florida, a lot of that has been driven through some policy decisions and looking at some small minor legislative changes this year based off of legislation passed previously.” Chronic absenteeism presents an equally pressing concern. Florida ranks seventh nationally for student absences, with rates surging 54.5% since 2018.“Post 6 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 06, ISSUE 07
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