Jacksonville’s school district has more than a thousand job vacancies

WLRN/WJCT News | By Claire Heddles | April 6, 2022

The district says it’s recruiting teachers out of state, holding local job fairs and providing extra training to get under-qualified applicants up to speed, but progress is slow.

Duval Schools is still struggling to fill more than a thousand open jobs.

The district says it’s recruiting teachers out of state, holding local job fairs and providing extra training to get under-qualified applicants up to speed, but progress is slow.

At the end of February, the district had 466 teaching vacancies. That number has dropped only to 407 since then.

Superintendent Diana Greene says one bright spot amid the hiring struggle is the vacancy trend for paraprofessionals, who work as classroom and teaching aides.

“Good news: Our paraprofessional numbers are going down,” Greene told the School Board on Tuesday evening. “You will see that was after the board’s vision to approve a beginning salary of $15 per hour.”

But the district still had more than 325 vacancies for paraprofessionals, as of Tuesday.

Duval also had 203 openings to fill in district administration and 86 open support staff jobs, including licensed nurses, behavior technicians and security guards.

Meanwhile, the school district is trying to persuade voters to sign off on a 1-mill property tax increase to go toward increasing teacher pay.

The funds could be used for increasing salaries of anyone employed by the school district — except board members, the superintendent and executive staff.

Voters will weigh in on the plan in August.