On Aug. 8, two days before students returned to Escambia County public schools, the News Journal reported the district had 59 vacant teacher positions. However, Inweekly had heard from the teachers’ union and others the situation was worse.
It was.
After waiting three weeks, the School District finally released the report required by the Florida Department of Education on teaching vacancies for the first day of school.
The report showed:
Pre-K to 5th vacancies: 37
6th to 8th: 25
9th to 12th: 8
Total: 70
The largest number of vacancies were Pre-K/Primary Education (17), Elementary Education (15), Math (11) and ESE-General (10). These four categories accounted for 76% of the unfilled positions.
Inweekly had asked for the breakdown of vacancies because we had heard that O.J. Semmes had been particularly hard, but the District didn’t give us those numbers.
The ghost of Malcolm Thomas still looms over the district.