“Teachers are leaving because of this.”Īccording to the Florida Department of Education, about 9,000 teachers will leave the profession at the end of the year. “We have cases throughout the state where teachers with 20, 25 years of experience are making less today than they would have with the exact same experience 10 years ago,” said Spar. Spar is talking about some of the laws that have been put in place over the years, which he and teachers say make it difficult for experienced teachers to get raises. “Starting teacher pay in Florida has gone up significantly, but it’s done so at the expense of everyone else.” “That actually does put us in a much better position for starting teacher pay,” Spar said. That is supposed to bring the starting salary for new teachers to $47,500. Ron Desantis announced $800 million from the budget would go towards teacher raises. The state devoted $2 million to raise teacher pay, and last month Gov. The fact is, Florida is one of the states with the lowest average salary overall for teacher pay. “People will say all the time teachers don’t go into it for money, and while that may be true, they also don’t go into it to live in poverty,” he said. Spar is the president of the Florida Education Association. “Pay is absolutely the driving factor,” said Andrew Spar. Yes, teachers say the pandemic was a major factor, but not the only factor.
In Hillsborough County, the turnover rate for the year was 8.6%. Last school year was known as the year of the “great resignation” for teachers across the state of Florida.