Bay District Schools continues to face teacher shortage

BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WJHG/WECP) - Several Bay District Schools are still in need of teachers. District officials said there are 32 teacher positions that still need to be filled out of the district’s 43 schools.

However, there is one school in the district that isn’t having to fill that void at the moment.

“We are thankfully full,” Hiland Park Elementary School Principal Ilea Faircloth said. “We’ve been very fortunate in hiring in our community, our families that have bachelor degrees.”

The district-wide teacher shortage isn’t preventing classes from being taught, though.

“Although we did have some vacancies, we were able to have people in the classrooms, and so no class was without someone,” Holly Buchanan, Executive Director of Human Resources at Bay District Schools, said. “That may have been a district personnel, it may have been a substitute, or it may have been a paraprofessional on campus, but all classrooms were opened.”

Faircloth said many factors have contributed to the shortage in Bay County.

“Education isn’t what it used to be,” Faircloth said. “Working with kids is a calling and a mission.”

She said fewer applicants are applying with experience in the elementary education programs at the college level.

However, Faircloth also said the uptick in new people moving to the area can help alleviate the shortage.

“With new people coming to the area we hopefully have educators or people with degrees who are interested in working with kids,” Faircloth said.

Bay District Schools also needs to fill close to 60 support positions.

You can apply to a position by visiting its career page.

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