The Florida Roundup - Finding Florida teachers in new WLRN series "Role Call'

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

This week on The Florida Roundup, we're joined by reporter Yvonne zum Tobel to discuss the WLRN series Role Call. The series looks into how Florida universities and school districts are incentivizing college students to become teachers in the highest-need areas.

This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for being along with us this week. Sydney Melvin walked across the stage earlier this month like thousands of new college graduates here in Florida. But unlike most of those, she is headed to a Florida public school classroom for her first job. I am a big fan of the upper elementary, so I love like third, fourth, fifth grade. That's definitely where I feel like I flourish and I can provide them what they need the most. Florida needs thousands of more,

like Sydney Melvin. The state has one of the highest number of teacher vacancies in the nation. Florida is short thousands of public school teachers, especially elementary school teachers, especially elementary school teachers, math and science teachers, and special education teachers. I actually found my passion for working with individuals with special needs when I was in middle school. This is Haley Thrift. She's a special education teacher in Orlando. When I was in middle school, I took a

elective course called Future Teachers, and I was placed in the school's autism unit. And from there, I just fell in love with working with individuals with special needs. Now, we will hear more from Haley Thrift and Sydney Melvin this hour. Over the past several months, our partner station, WLRN in South Florida, has been visiting classrooms and schools across the state, examining government-funded incentive programs that aim to train and recruit teachers to see if they're making a difference. The project is called Roll Call. Florida public schools have been a battleground over curriculum, culture, and cost. I'm proud and thrilled to announce that again, for a second year in a row, we have been ranked number one in the nation for

education by U.S. News and World Report. This is State Education Commissioner Manny Diaz during the State Education Board meeting this week. This achievement is a testament to the hard work and dedication and the innovative spirit of our educators, students, and parents. Florida is also ranked number one in the Parent Power Index by the Center for Educational Reform. He index evaluates... He was extolling two recent rankings of the state's public education system. Florida's top rankings are not just a coincidence. They reflect our unwavering commitment to educational excellence and enhanced learning outcomes for all students. Notably, Diaz did not mention another recent survey

that put Florida almost last in the nation for teacher salaries. That study comes from the National Education Association Teachers Union. The state has called the ranking bogus. Andrew Spahr is the president of the Florida Education Association. He spoke after the state Board of Education meeting on Wednesday. We have a massive teacher and staff shortage here in the state of Florida. meeting on Wednesday. We have a massive teacher and staff shortage here in the state of Florida, and we have not heard solutions or seen solutions be presented by the governor or his administration, including the commissioner of education and the Department of Education. So what should Florida do

to attract people to the teaching profession? How does pay, classroom behavior, and parents all figure into recruiting and keeping teachers in classrooms? Now, if you're a teacher or used to be a teacher and left the profession, we'd love to hear from you this hour. What have your experiences in the classroom been like? And parents and students, you're a big part of this conversation too. Tell us about those classroom experiences. The phone lines are open on this Friday, live 305-995-1800. You can also email us radio at thefloridaroundup.org. The email inbox is open waiting for you radio at thefloridaroundup.org. IVAN ZUMTOBEL IS THE REPORTER BEHIND ROLL CALL, THIS REPORTING PROJECT LOOKING AT TAXPAYER FUNDED PROGRAMS AIMING TO ADDRESS THE PERVASIVE SHORTAGE OF TEACHERS HERE IN FLORIDA. IVAN, GREAT WORK AND THANK YOU FOR SHARING IT WITH US HERE. WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF THESE PROGRAMS?

ARE THEY HAVING ANY NOTICEABLE IMPACT ON PUTTING PEOPLE, PUTTING TEACHERS IN CLASSROOMS IN FLORIDA? IT'S GREAT TO BE HERE, TOM. THANK YOU. impact on putting people, putting teachers in classrooms in Florida. It's great to be here, Tom. Thank you. I think they are making an impact, but it's very, very small relative to the number of vacancies we have in the state right now. And so how bad is the shortage that the state faces? Right now, numbers are showing anywhere between 4,000 and 5,000. And how does that compare with the rest of the country, for instance? I would say we're at close to the top of the list. There's more empty desks in front of classrooms in Florida than there are elsewhere, essentially. Yes. Wow. And what types of teachers then are most

needed? Where are the vacancies the most significant? The high needs in Florida are ESC, that's special education. Elementary school teachers are also number two. And then followed by ESOL, which my stories don't cover that, but STEM teachers, math and science teachers. ESOL is English as a second language? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Pretty significant shortage in the state of Florida with so many foreign-born students, for instance. Now, you looked at three programs that we're going to examine throughout this hour designed to attract and train new teachers. We're going to hear about the efforts regarding science and math teachers a little bit later on in this hour. We'll also hear about a program designed to attract folks to elementary school classrooms. But tell us about one strategy

to bring more teachers into special education. As you mentioned, the highest need, the highest vacancy rates there in the state of Florida. Well, at the University of Central Florida, they're offering a free master's degree paid for by the federal government to address this shortage. And it's a shortage, actually, that's been around since the 1960s. In fact, what, 7 million students that require special education now in the nation? Yes, there are over 7 million K-12 students that require special education in the United States. That means they have a physical, mental, or learning disability. In Florida, that's 15% of students, and we don't have enough qualified teachers to serve them. But the University of Central Florida is trying to get more qualified teachers in the classroom with a government-funded incentive program.

We have eight campuses across Central Florida. Walkers and wheelchairs line the hallways of this K-8 charter school. Traditional schools, they have one classroom just for special needs. We don't. We have one fifth grade class. Our kids learn together at the same time. They just may do it a little bit different. Matthew Hartigan is community engagement manager at UCP Bailey's Community Academy in Orlando.

UCP stands for Unlocking Children's Potential, and this is an inclusion school. Half of the students here have special needs. We can go upstairs then. Hi, how are you? This is a recorder. It's a microphone. Yeah, I'm just recording our conversation.

Haley Thrift and I are sitting together in kid-sized desks, observing her class of third and fourth graders. I actually found my passion for working with individuals with special needs when I was in middle school. When I was in middle school, I took an elective course called Future Teachers, and I was placed in the school's autism unit. And from there, I just fell in love with working with individuals with special needs. Wednesday.

Wednesday. Today is Wednesday. Yes, bub. Here you go. Thrift is a recent graduate of the University of Central Florida's Project Bridges, a federally funded program that aims at fighting the shortage of special education teachers. There are nine students here, and Thrift is joined by an occupational therapist and a speech therapist. She tells me why it's important that these kids get extra attention. So there is still a need for our kiddos who have that higher intensity needs and behavioral needs to come into a smaller classroom so that they can get their curriculum goals, their behavior, their social-emotional goals met in a smaller environment. They come to me for their core academics from 9 to 12-15,

and then they go back to their inclusion classrooms. So they still get that social-emotional aspect with their typical gen ed peers. Thrift has been teaching here for three years. While working full time, she earned her master's in exceptional student education, taking classes at night. It was paid for by the U.S. Department of Education. As a recipient of this scholarship, Thrift has to fulfill a service obligation. That means she must teach students with disabilities for the next four years. Earning a master's degree didn't give Thrift a huge jump in her salary, only 4 percent, from $50,500 to $52,500.

Her biggest takeaway was learning to collaborate. Collaborating with the colleagues in the classroom, collaborating with the students' parents, collaborating with their therapist, their whole team, some speech pathologists, some physical therapists, occupational therapists. It can be a big team. A little boy comes up to us with what looks like an iPad. Hi. What does this do? This is his AAC device, which is an augmentative means of, yeah, that Nicholas is your best friend.

So he doesn't speak orally. He speaks through his device. Oh, wow. Yes. Yeah. He's able to kind of just recognize the pictures and know. Yeah, so he works with our speech-language pathologists on how to, you know, on how to use it because it is a lot.

It's a lot of information. According to the Florida Department of Education, during the 2022-2023 school year, nearly 16 percent of courses for students with disabilities were taught by teachers not certified in that field. The U.S. Department of Education has been funding professional development programs like these across the country since 2006. Federal data show more than 90% of recent scholarship recipients are working in their field until they've met their service obligation. That's either two or four years later, depending on the student. Thrift feels like the master's degree really leveled up her skills.

It changed my life for the better and it changed my life in this field. It's made a huge impact on my students and the way that I teach so it's definitely worthwhile. Since 2015, 56 special education students have graduated from UCF's Project Bridges. Projections show that for the upcoming school year, there will be more than 2,500 vacancies for ESC teachers in Florida. We are talking about the teacher shortage in Florida with Yvonne Zum-Tobel, reporter for our special project called Roll Call, looking at systems and strategies throughout the state of Florida to attract and train new teachers. An email from Michael in Broward County, Yvonne, he wrote us saying he was awarded two Teacher

of the Year awards after 19 years of teaching. He says, I left the profession, although I miss the students. I now make significantly more money, have more respect, better working conditions, and better benefits in my new profession. Sadly, we do not pay teachers what they are worth. In Michael's email, I should note, included a photo of the Broward County Schools webpage laying out starting pay for teachers, which in Broward County is about $49,000. Deborah sent us this email writing, teacher salaries are not enough to live in the community where you teach or support your family. Teachers spend time in the classroom, but they also spend hundreds of hours preparing, training, and interacting with students and parents. This

time is unpaid. The state of Florida needs to increase teacher pay and benefits. Radio at thefloridaroundup.org is our inbox or 305-995-1800. 305-995-1800. Anita has been listening in from Polk County. Anita, go ahead. You're on the radio. I was a teacher two years ago. I was a teacher for a decade here in Polk County. One of the main things that I wanted to share was just just it's not that we have a shortage of qualified people, that we have a shortage of qualified people willing to stay.

There are so many people that have left this profession due to pay, due to feeling disrespected as professionals. We're not often trusted in our classrooms to be able to use the skills that we have within our degree and within our certification to teach children. We're not given that autonomy to do what's best for our students. And so a lot of people leave from that. Also, with teacher pay, it is abysmal. We are only ahead of West Virginia as far as average pay in the country. as far as average pay in the country. When a teacher can leave here and go to Georgia and make $10,000 to $12,000 more with the same amount of time in the field,

they do. People leave the state. People leave their profession. I left, and I'm now working in political advocacy, and I make almost 50% more than I was making as a teacher. And it's just massively inappropriate that we do not allow degree professionals the pay that should be due them with their education, with the amount of continuing education that's required.

The other piece is if we would reduce the workload. There are high school teachers that have 200 students, middle school teachers that have 180 students, and we expect them to personalize the education and to fulfill all of the needs of their students because we're no longer following the state mandate around class size. So I wish that that was a piece that was part of this conversation. Anita, I appreciate your input there. A former classroom teacher in Polk County, Javier is listening in in Pembroke Pines. Javier, thank you for calling. You are on the radio. Hi. Yeah, there's a lot to this topic that I'm pretty passionate about. And I mean, one of the reasons I left the teaching is because, like I said earlier, it's a profession,

which, you know, clocking out means now you have to grade papers and emails that will back on students, both the need to support academically and socially, you know, because one impacts the other. And, you know, all this is unpaid. Not even adding the fact that teacher duties like working in cafeterias, dropping off pickup lines, all that stuff. And then adding all to all of this, right, we're constantly victimized in the political field and people probably never set foot in the classroom, let alone teach, and then parents who just don't trust us. And then on all of that, you know, you're adding the fact that, you know, our youth across the nation is suffering immensely in the mental health aspect, and no one seems to be caring much about it. Or rather, they're taking methods that are being mandated

with no passion or real connection to their students. Yeah. Javier, I appreciate all of those points there from Pembroke Pines. Thank you for joining the conversation here on the Florida Roundup 305-995-1800. We're talking about Roll Call, a reporting project throughout the state of Florida looking and examining different strategies to attract college students to the teaching profession through various incentive programs. Yvonne Zum-Tobel is the reporter behind this project. Yvonne, you had reported and shared the story of Haley Thrift here just a few moments ago, and she mentioned that she took a class in middle school that inspired her to get into special education. Tell us more about these early exposure efforts. How do young students in middle school, 12, 13, 14 years old, encounter the teaching profession and think about it as a potential career path? A number of the teachers that I interviewed all had similar experiences.

They were working with kids in middle school and high school. They were camp counselors. And these, you know, experiences influenced them greatly, and they wanted to become teachers as a result. So it seems like it works at the younger age. And how is the strategy of these incentives, like trading tuition for a teaching obligation, how are they working? They're working up until the obligation is paid, which is all the data we have currently from the federal government. They don't follow them after that.

But up until they pay, they're still in those fields. You spoke with one expert, Tuan Nguyen, a researcher from Kansas State University, to really figure out how well this and these other Florida programs are working. They are providing more teachers into the workforce, but the number of teachers they're providing is fairly small relative to the size of the teacher's labor market in Florida. So really, it's moving the needle, but only a very, very small amount relative to the number of vacancy that you have.

Now, Oliver Edwards is the chair of the University of Central Florida's Department of Counselor Education and School Psychology and talks about just that level of impact. Our project may be somewhat small in the grand scope of things, but I think it really adds to what's happening here in Florida in terms of increasing the quantity and quality of teachers and school psychologists in our schools. And if they only impact one, two, ten, twenty students and change their lives for the better, that is a tremendous benefit for our state and for our nation. I can hear folks asking about the return on investment here for this particular

federal program. How much money are we talking about invested in this? Well, the Department of Education spends $115 million annually on programs like these across the country. And does the state of Florida have dollars involved with this program to attract college students to special education teaching? It's only federal dollars that I know of right now, except that they're public colleges and universities, unless some funds somehow. Yeah, sure. Well, we're talking about Roll Call, a reporting project about the efforts to incentivize college students to become teachers here in the state of Florida. students to become teachers here in the state of Florida. Florida has thousands of teacher vacancies across the state, particularly for elementary, special education, science, and math teaching. 305-995-1800. More phone calls coming up, as well as your emails when you send them radio

at thefloridaroundup.org, radio at thefloridaroundup.org. We will continue our conversation with Yvonne zoom Tobel, the reporter behind roll call coming up on the Florida roundup from your Florida public radio station. This is the Florida roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Thanks for listening this week. We're tackling Florida's teacher shortage. Our partner station, WLRN, has spent months examining programs using tax dollars, working to incentivize college students to enter the teaching profession. There are thousands of teaching vacancies across the Sunshine State. Christina sent us this email to radio at the Florida Roundup dot org.

She writes, I taught special ed in Miami-Dade County public schools directly in the classroom for 20 years and as a district support specialist for 15 more. I'm currently happily retired. Well, congratulations, Christina. She says, I love my career and have no regrets. She says, I love my career and have no regrets. However, I'm saddened by the devolution, the devolution of the public education in this state under the current political regime. It seems that the GOP faction is hard at work dismantling public education at every level. We also have an email saying I am a former parent who came into public school teaching through alternative certification. I now work at a middle school ELA teacher in a public school. And while I love working with the kids and have a great administrators and parents, I struggle making ends meet with the salary I am making.

Yvonne Zumtoble is the reporter behind this project roll call. And Yvonne, you surveyed more than a hundred education majors at public schools, public universities here in Florida. What about the issue of pay? This has come up pretty considerably in the inbox and with some earlier callers. Yes, pay was one of the factors that they would, you know, assume were going to be a challenge. Yes. What are some of the other challenges or opportunities that you found in this survey as you asked education students about the profession of teaching. They wanted more emphasis placed on classroom management and training programs,

especially for alternatively certified teachers that have subject expertise but lack that teaching experience. Yeah. Ann is listening in in St. Johns County. Ann, thank you for listening and calling. You are on the radio. And thank you for listening and calling. You are on the radio. Hi, yes. I'm a school psychologist, and I just wanted to add in for the support of teachers that I agree with. Everybody has a lack of pay, especially in Florida, and that's part of why they leave. But I just wanted to hit upon some points that haven't been mentioned. With the increase of standards that are put on teachers every year,

have been mentioned with the increase of standards that are put on teachers every year. There is little time to be able to function in the classroom, to be able to have that enjoyment of teaching for the student or the teacher. There is a lack of focus on social-emotional, and teachers are exhausted beyond having to spend time outside of school, which they don't get paid for if they're working. But then there is an increase of behaviors, mental and social't get paid for for working. But then there is an increase of behaviors, mental and social-emotional difficulties for students. And that is, there's very little training.

As someone said earlier, more students in a classroom, so there's more to manage with that. But having to focus on state tests and standards, which other schools do not have to focus on as much, is a lot of pressure for teachers, especially at the third grade level. And then finally, a point that I wanted to make was that while I'm okay with charter schools and they do a lot of great services for students, the state allows money to follow the student, which is fine, except for when the students return to the public school from the charter school, so that money doesn't come back to the public school. So there's not that funding that's following the student, it's just staying with the charter school. Okay. I know it follows the student. I'm not familiar about whether or not it follows the

student throughout their academic career if they move between, from a charter back to to a public traditional public school. But I appreciate that call from St. John's County. Yvonne, one strategy that you've looked at here really is going at trying to encourage folks in elementary school education, one of those places where you've identified in your reporting that has a real shortage of vacancies. It's been a highest projected vacancy rates in elementary schools, for instance, looking out into the next school year. So tell us about how one project is trying to address this. One strategy is a partnership between the University of South Florida, Sarasota-Manatee, and the school district of Manatee County.

They hope to combat the teacher shortage by offering paid internships at local elementary schools. The lights are off in this fourth grade classroom and Sydney Melvin is opening the blinds. Yeah, sometimes we'll open the windows and get natural light in just because the fluorescents can be kind of harsh on us and on them for sure. Sunlight has a calming effect and helps her students focus, Melvin says. She's an intern at Daughtry Elementary School in Bradenton. Melvin is bubbly and always smiling.

It's Literacy Week, and on this Thursday morning in January, she's wearing pajama bottoms to encourage students to cozy up with a good book. I am the teacher who's on the floor with them, writing their homework with them on the floor. I'm dressing up because I want this to be like a fun space for them. So I really prioritize that for sure. She's a senior at the University of South Florida Sarasota Manatee. Education majors like her have four clinical experiences as part of the undergraduate program. In the final semester, they complete a mandatory internship. So the way the

USF education program is set up, it's set up into two years. The first two semesters is your level one and your level two. You're only in the classroom one day a week, so that's definitely where people are putting their toes in and kind of seeing if this is what you want to do, which I think is amazing and super important because not every college has you do that sometimes they just throw you in and if you're already about to graduate you might feel a little stuck and then the second year is level three and level four and I have spent both of those here at Daughtry with Ms. Swanson so it went from being here two days a week so now I'm here five days and starting to gain more control of the class until eventually being the primary teacher and Miss Watson being more of a

support. Melvin is planning to graduate with her bachelor's degree in elementary education this spring. For now she's working full-time here earning $15 an hour and it's paid for by the Manatee County School District. It's the second year the school district has been paying student interns, and that's rare. Even with that paycheck coming in, though, Melvin also works at a coffee shop and as a bartender. She lives with her parents. The cost of living, especially in Manatee County, is a little bit daunting.

It's higher than the national average and has risen in recent years. I work three jobs just to prepare for when I do inevitably become a teacher and move out. Melvin is floating around the classroom as her fourth graders work quietly on reading and writing assignments. I am a big fan of the upper elementary so I love like third, fourth, fifth grade. That's definitely where I feel like I flourish and I can provide them what they need the most. I love in upper elementary, these kids are really finding themselves and I love the independence that they're starting to learn, that growth from just being kids who are following adults around and just doing their own thing to forming their

own opinions, to supporting them and finding their own ideas and their own interests. I love that. I love giving kids the opportunity to explore and find themselves. I think it's really important. I have to be honest, unlike a lot of the girls in the cohort, I did not want to be in education. I had no interest in it until maybe the beginning of my sophomore year of college. I knew that whatever profession I was gonna go into, I knew it wanted to be something that could impact people. I have always been that way since I was little. I just wanted to help those around me. And as I matured and got older,

I was thinking about what can I do that would have the biggest impact on my community, as well as just the youth. So I went from like babysitting and I worked at a couple camps for children with special needs so my love for children just grew through that and that's how I ended up here. I think teaching definitely has a stigma around it outside of just my friends, even adults I talk to, people I talk to in public. You say you want to be a teacher, the next question is why?

Even sometimes with people who are already teachers, when I tell them I am pursuing education, there's the why. I try not to let the comments about money or like find a rich husband get to me because I know this is definitely where I'm supposed to be. In a survey conducted by WLRN of more than 100 education majors at public colleges around Florida, 55% said someone had discouraged them from becoming a teacher. This partnership between USF and the Manatee County School District is one of several we're reporting on that are trying to do the opposite, encourage people to choose a career in education.

The partnership between USF and the school district takes a community grow your own approach in hopes that students like Melvin will stay and teach in Manatee County upon graduation. In 2023, at least eight out of 10 student interns who participated in the paid internship program stayed in the district. I think a big part of it is just changing the narrative around it and that comes from the teachers. I think a big part of it is just changing the narrative around it and that comes from the teachers. I think as a teacher you do have to be more positive and you have to have an asset-based mindset about it and you have to be able to communicate that. So like all over TikTok you see teachers on there complaining and that's not going to attract

the right crowd. I have a big role in that or just speaking out making a big difference on campus. right crowd. I have a big role in that or just speaking out, making a big difference on campus. I think it can make a difference for sure. I didn't go into college wanting to be a teacher, but when I hear positive things and I recognize, oh, you do have a say in what goes on in your classroom. It's not just this craziness that everybody talks about. You do have that control. Melvin is concerned about the increased cost of living in the Suncoast region, even though starting teacher salaries in Manatee are close to $58,000 a year. She expects that managing classroom behavior will be her biggest challenge. The WLRN survey of education majors found 59 percent shared this concern. So while behaviors

can be tough, they've equipped us with very good, equitable ways to direct that. And I think as the new generation of teachers come in and we have these more productive behavioral management skills, I think we're going to see that shift. But it might take time. Three months later, I returned to Daughtry Elementary in Bradenton where Sydney Melvin's internship is in full swing. She's now in charge of this fourth grade class. We are going to collect data by building Oreo Towers.

Oreo? Oreo Towers. Can we eat them? That, oh I'm glad you asked that question. Give me one second and I will tell you. What is going to happen is I'm going to count you off into groups. We're not going to complain about the groups you're in. We are not going to switch our groups. We're going to give you an anchor chart paper. Your Oreos stay on the anchor chart paper.

Everybody, where are our Oreos staying? On the anchor chart paper. Does that mean they're in the carpet? No. Does that mean they're in our mouths? No. No, they're staying on the anchor chart paper. Melvin is passing out huge sheets of paper that she lays on the floor.

Then she hands each group of children a few sleeves of Oreo cookies. Their task is to see how many Oreos they can stack on top of each other before the tower falls. They'll do this four times and then find the mean of their answers. One person is going to build a tower with all the Oreos. Then the next person is going to go, then the next person, then the next person. Because if you all split them, then everybody's only going to be able to make a tower six tall. Do you know what I'm trying to say? Melvin appears much more confident in the classroom than she was when we first met back in January.

And she's ditched the pajama pants. I've had control for I want to say a good month and a half. Having that control is very transformative. I have learned so much and I think dressing like a professional is a big part of feeling like a professional and as a 21 year old coming into my profession that's something I value. And you're formulating conclusions or like we talk about in reading, we form claims. You can make a claim based on that information. I think also seeing me as a teacher and not just seeing me as like the help or the assistant.

Like they come up to me with Ms. Melvin, Ms. Melvin, Ms. Melvin, which feels very validating for me and it makes me very happy. So I've built a deeper connection with them. I've addressed a lot more with them. I've addressed a lot more of their individual needs, which is great. I know what helps them learn and how to address my lesson to meet those goals. As Melvin writes her lessons, she gets guidance from her mentor teacher Nicole Swanson, who's been teaching for 15 years. We have a very good relationship, so throughout the day

if I teach a lesson she'll be like, hey, for next time do this. Or as we're going on, she'll just jump in and support and fill in any gaps that aren't missing, which makes me feel good because I think with education there is a lot of imposter syndrome. So a lot of the time I'm up there and I'm like, I don't even know if I'm really getting to these kids. And if I'm not, she helps me me which takes away a lot of that anxiety and creates an environment where I really can grow and not be so overwhelmed with doing everything perfect. Miss Melvin has just been a very I would say natural confident teacher but I've just seen like that spark even just develop from when she started out the year. I know that she's just going

to do a really great job as an educator because her desire to help the kids is just really, really, really deep. It stems deeper than just teaching them, just kind of like building that relationship piece. So it's just been a joy to just see her develop and grow as an educator. Ah, you got to split into four, not three. Yes. So 15, 30, 45, 60? No remainders. Good job, my friend. Yeah, we're in the point now where I'm transitioning out, which feels a little weird. Ms. Swanson's taking back over. So I'm definitely ready for my own classroom.

Sydney Melvin will have her own classroom soon. She accepted a job, offer, teaching, 5th grade, Sydney Melvin will have her own classroom soon. She accepted a job offer teaching fifth grade beginning in August at Palmetto Elementary in Manatee County. I'm Tom Hudson and you're listening to the Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. We're talking about the shortage of public school teachers in Florida regarding a reporting project called Roll Call, examining different efforts throughout the state to attract college students to the teaching profession. Martha sent us this email. I am with about 30 social studies teachers right now listening to your show during our lunch break from professional development training. Martha, thank you for spending lunch with us here on public radio.

She says, while our content area was not mentioned as a teacher shortage area on your program, we are middle school social studies teachers. It is especially challenging for us to attract teachers to our level. Everyone seems afraid of middle school students. And there's a perception that we are not as sharp as high school teachers or that our courses are somehow less academic. We mostly hold the same certification as high school teachers, but get no incentives for teaching high-level AP courses, have exhausting schedules, and have a state high-stakes end-of-course test. Well, Martha, I hope you have a restful summer. Thank you for spending a couple of minutes with us here on the Florida Roundup. Ellen has been listening to our conversation from Apopka. Ellen, go ahead.

You are on the radio. Oh, thank you. That was an excellent interview, by the way. And I think that girl, that teacher represents a lot of great teachers in our school who have the same drive. Anyway, I live in Orange County, and this is a little bit off topic, but our Orange County School Board representative let us know that there are 10 schools going to be built in the Orange County. And probably going to take 10 years. But where are they going to get the teachers to fill these schools? And the reason why they're building so many schools is because of all the development, which is just the way it is. But there's going to be a sales tax increasing the

Orange County sales tax on the ballot in November. And our county representative has told us that 50 percent of that increase is going to go towards helping to build the school. Ellen, you bring up a great, yeah, the population and the development in Orange County and Central Florida has been exploding and requires more schools because there's more students, certainly, while other large school districts like Broward and Duval and others have been talking about closing some schools. But what about, Yvonne, to Ellen's point, what are the projections for teacher shortages here in Florida? Well, the projections really depend on the subject matter. So for ESE teachers, they're projecting for the 24-25 school year over 2,500. Elementary education over 2,200.

English over almost close to 600. English teachers even in shortage. Yep. And math teachers about 570. And that's just in the next school year let alone as ellen talks about 10 years down the line as they're building new schools in orange county to be able to educate the next generation of residents in central florida we're talking about roll call a reporting project looking at incentive programs to attract college students to the teaching profession to address the teaching shortage here in the Sunshine State.

305-995-1800 or radio at thefloridaroundup.org. You're listening to The Florida Roundup from your Florida Public Radio station. This is The Florida Roundup. Thanks for being along with us this week and spending some time. I'm Tom Hudson. We're talking about Roll Call. It's a reporting project from inside public school classrooms throughout the state of Florida examining government-funded incentive programs

aiming to address the ongoing and pervasive shortage of teachers here in Florida. Steve sent us this email. The teacher vacancy issue should not surprise anyone with eyes and ears that care. I subbed in the classroom both neuro normative and special needs of numerous Brevard County public schools for 16 plus years, mostly elementary and middle school levels. Who in their pursuit of a teaching profession would want to teach in a state where politics and economics so severely limit what good teachers are forced to fashion into a lifestyle and are mandated to do. That's from Steve. Yvonne Zumtoble is the reporter behind Roll Call. What about the reputation of teaching as a profession? How does that play into the young students and the soon-to-be teachers that you spoke with?

Most of the students that I spoke with just were talking most about changing the narrative around it and having that positive narrative, that the more positive things encourage them more, which is probably why at that young age they kind of got inspired and influenced by those experiences. But you also found that a number of them had heard discouraging words about their career choice. Yes, a number of them did. Even in our survey of 100 students, a lot of them said they were discouraged. You examined a number of these programs designed to attract these college students to the teaching profession here using lots of different incentives. Are teachers that are going through these programs sticking with it?

I think it's too maybe early to tell. Some of the programs like FIU, which is coming up, they have long-term data and it shows that there were about 101 grads since the program's inception and about 75% of those are still teaching. This FIU program is one directed at really science and math teachers to attract them to the profession here. Tell us a little bit about it. Well, science and math is a very high need, you know, subject area right now. And the program is very interesting. They're taking STEM majors and they're turning them into math and science teachers. They're taking STEM majors and they're turning them into math and science teachers. Heavy oak doors adorned with wrought iron hinges are propped open,

and it feels as if I've gone back in time to a Gothic cathedral. I'm standing in the entryway of Miami Senior High School, one of the oldest high schools in the county. This historic structure was built here in Little Havana in 1928. Some students are eating their lunches along tree-lined sidewalks. Some are kicking around a soccer ball in the grass and others are taking a stroll. And it's not just spring that's in the air but the sound of kids chatting in Spanish. 95 percent of the students here are Hispanic or Latino. As I enter the school, it's easy to see its rich history. A mural commissioned in the 1940s adorns the lobby. It features artists,

scholars, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Robert E. Lee. And I get the feeling that generations of immigrants walked on these Dade County pine floors and under these schoolhouse lights. My mom actually went to this school. My aunt went to this school. My uncle went to this school. And my brother went to this school. That's Cynthia Garza. She, too, graduated from this high school in 2019.

And now she's back. But this time, she's the teacher. She's been an intern here since January, earning college credits. My mom is a teacher. My aunt's a teacher. My grandma was a teacher in Cuba. When I was little, I always played teacher, but I was always a teacher. I was never the student. I was always the teacher giving quizzes to my cousins and my brother.

So I've always wanted to be a teacher. It's early April, and Garza is about to graduate from Florida International University, but not with a standard education degree. She's earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics with a focus in math education. She's part of FIU Teach, a program aimed at getting students with STEM degrees to teach in local middle and high schools. During Garza's time as an intern here, she's been teaching Algebra 1 to freshmen. As these students enter the classroom, they drop their cell phones in a pocket hanging near the front door.

There are 30 students here. They use their laptops to sign into an app called Kahoot, an online platform that makes learning a game. It's like a little game. learning a game. It's like a little game. So like a question will go up on the board and then they'll have like let's say a minute or two minutes to do the question. What it's asking us is it's asking us to find what is going to be the equation for this graph right here.

But first let's look at the answer choices. What form is the, are all of these answer choices in? Garza has already been offered a full-time teaching position here starting in August. It's in vertex form. Good. Vertex form right here. So in vertex form we're able to get what? Qualified STEM teachers are in high demand.

No. In vertex form you can get what from it? The vertex. The vertex, yes. So what we're going to do is we're going to find the... Math ranks fifth for the subject area with the highest number of teacher vacancies across Florida public schools, according to the State Department of Education. Okay, so on our graph it tells us that the vertex is 2 comma negative 4.

So what we're going to do is that we're going to go through all of these answer choices and we're going to see which one has the vertex 2 comma negative 4. I definitely do think this program helps teachers a lot more because I like the way that FIU kind of like focuses on the subject itself because you really have to like have another mindset to like go through all of those math classes and it's a lot more math classes that you would take in comparison if you just had a math education degree. I'm with my mentor teacher and I'm pretty much with him the entire time. Like he does not leave me. teacher and I'm pretty much with him the entire time like I he does not leave me. So after every problem is Garza and I are going to do an explanation let us know if you need anything. Yes question. Garza's mentor teacher Jose Pavone is also a graduate of FIU TEACH.

So first of all we have to be able to make the connection between the math that you're doing and what it's giving you for the graph guys. Okay if you want to be able to master quadratics you need to be able to connect what am I calculating to what it's giving you for the graph, guys. If you want to be able to master quadratics, you need to be able to connect what am I calculating to what is it giving me on the graph. This is Pavone's fourth year teaching. He didn't know he wanted to be a teacher until after earning a bachelor's degree in biology. I realized I wanted a job that was more social, a lot more communication, wanted to be around people. And while I love labs and stuff and experiments, it was very lonely.

So when Pavone went back to school, he tried an FIU Teach intro class and loved it. I tried teaching because when I took the first FIU Teach class, it's completely free. It's a reimbursement style, so you pay for the class and at the end, when you finish the course, you're reimbursed for the cost of the class. Because it really is supposed to be just you get your feet wet. You're just trying it out. And if it's not for you, it's not for you. But you can't say you didn't try. You can't say you didn't go into the classroom and give it your best shot. One of the ways FIU Teach recruits prospective teachers is by going into STEM classes and pitching students

who are majoring in subjects like math, science, and engineering on taking an introductory teaching course. It places them in K-12 classrooms. That first class, like, I knew, like, I loved it. And it was even in, like, I remember it was like a middle school. I forget the name of the school, but it was a middle school, younger kids, like a demographic I didn't even think I would want to work with. I knew I wanted to do high school, but I just knew like if I like this so much already and I thought I wouldn't, like I just know this is for me. Pavone earned a bachelor's in chemistry along with FIU Teach and interned here at Miami Senior High School. He's been working here ever since. And I also think that a lot of people think because they understand the content, they

can teach it. And I think there's a big disconnect there. Pavone thinks the FIU Teach program bridges the two. Nearly 11 percent of math classes at Florida public schools are taught by teachers not certified in math, according to state data. See you tomorrow for your test. Later that same day, I take a ride to FIU and attend a weekly workshop for current FIU TEACH students. These six students are all in their final semester.

They're sharing different teaching methods and lesson plans and getting feedback from the instructors. FIU TEACH is based on the U-TEACH model, a national program from the instructors. FIU Teach is based on the UTeach model, a national program from the University of Texas. FIU's program is one of 50 across the country. Nicole Diaz is a biology major. During her freshman year, FIU Teach staff went to one of her biology classes and pitched the introductory course. They had come to one of my classes and talked and I was like, okay, you know what?

It's one credit, it's not too much of a strain. Let me test it out, see if I fit, and I did. She started during the early days of the pandemic. And that experience was amazing. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong because it was through Zoom at that time because it was COVID, but it was just awesome seeing how interested they were

in our lesson and in the chat, they were like, oh my God, this is so fun. This is her final semester. Diaz is an intern at Terra Environmental Research Institute. It's a magnet high school in Miami that focuses on environmental and biomedical research as well as engineering and robotics. They were hoping that the person who was coming for the internship would be interested,

and I was. So I will be starting in the fall as their new marine science teacher. Yeah, so it's actually my alma mater, so it's very interesting. It's been a very fun experience going back as a teacher and seeing all of my teachers and now being at a more colleague level. So it's been very interesting and I'm very excited to start in the fall. But not all of the students here want to teach high school. One student I spoke to is not planning to teach at all. Then there's Juan Sanchez.

He's graduating with a math degree and has been teaching algebra at his alma mater, Cypress Bay High School in Weston. The high school that I'm working at is the same high school that I went to, and it's the same high school that my sister goes to, and my sister's a senior, so some of the students are my sister's friends, and I know them, and it was a little high school that my sister goes to and my sister is a senior so some of the students are my sister's friends and I know them and it was a little bit awkward at first to tell them like uh yeah you gotta call me Mr. Sanchez now right it's it's it was pretty weird but. Mr. Sanchez has found teaching to be very rewarding. When you see the students that are

students that hate math or they just don't want to come to school, they don't want to wake up early and they come, they put in the work, they understand, they learn and they have fun in the classroom. It's just wonderful. To portray and see how functions. That's Yvonne Zum-Tobel reporting for the series Roll Call. It's a reporting project from inside public school classrooms throughout the Sunshine State, examining government-funded incentive programs aiming to address the ongoing and pervasive shortage of teachers in Florida. And that is our program for today.

It is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF Public Media in Tampa by Bridget O'Brien and Grayson Docter. The Roll Call reporting project is reported and produced by Yvonne Zum-Tobel, Jessica Baikman is the editor, Thank you. Richard Ives engineered today's program, and Carlton Gillespie answered your calls. Our theme music provided by Miami jazz guitarist Aaron Leibos at AaronLeibos.com. Thanks for calling, emailing, listening. Have a terrific weekend. I'm Tom Hudson.