Keeping quality teachers in South Florida classrooms is a challenge.
Just ask Sandra Lopez-Gallardo, about to start her 20th year as a teacher. And she loves it.
“What they’re paying us is not liveable,” she said.
She cited pay as the number one reason teachers are leaving campus for good.
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Lopez teaches language arts at Pioneer Middle School in Cooper City. After two decades in the clasroom, Lopez said she earns around $52,000 per year.
To make ends meet, she hustles over the summer and after hours during the school year.
"I tutor around the clock," she said, adding that she teaches online classes and seminars.
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"Every teacher I know is working two to three jobs. We're doing DoorDash, we're doing Uber, we're doing waitressing," she said. "You do what you have to do to pay the bills."
She also cited two more things driving teachers from the classroom: excessive testing and safety concerns.
Lopez said she appreciates advances made in campus safety when it comes to outside threats, particularly since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting that killed 17 students and staff members in 2018. But she said when students have angry outbursts, it can also be a dangerous scenario for teachers.
There's still another side to the shortage story, according to Susan Rockelman, Broward School District's director of talent acquisition. She said districts are up against a decline in education programs at colleges and universities.
"Unfortunately, students are not going to college to become teachers anymore," Rockelman said.
Rockelman has turned to creative ways or "alternative pathways" to encourage career changers to enter the teaching field.
A new state law gives aspiring teachers from other industries more time to work with a mentor and get certified.
"The new program under the new law has expanded the three-year program to five years, which allows a teacher more time to complete all of their requirements that they will need," Rockelman said.
Lopez was a career changer 20 years ago. She traded the business world for the classroom, and she doesn't regret it. Despite the challenges of pay, testing, and safety, she plans on staying put for now.
"Because I have a thing for kids, I love them," she said. "I'm there for the kids. It's my passion."
A Miami-Dade School District spokesman said it is difficult to identify exactly how many positions are open right now because of a series of teacher move assignments. The district's website shows more than 136 job postings for teaching positions, mostly for special education.
But the actual number of teacher openings could be significantly higher.
In Broward, Rockelman is trying to fill 175 teaching positions for the upcoming school year. She said she is confident the district would be able to fill the vast majority of them before the first day of school on August 21st.
As far as pay, Miami-Dade teachers are expecting a pay raise between seven and ten percent for the 2023-2024 school year, after a tentative agreement between United Teachers of Dade and the school district in July.
In Broward, the Broward Teachers Union and the school district have yet to reach a deal on pay raises. Their next meeting is scheduled for August 9th.
