This year signs have popped up in front of schools in Hillsborough County by a large temporary work agency seeking teachers; does this mean there’s a major teacher shortage? This week WMNF News put that question to School Board member April Griffin, who said the district is always looking to hire new teachers but they’ve hired a temp agency to recruit more substitutes.
“We just recently contracted with Kelly Services to run our substitute teaching program. So it’s a cost savings to the district; it’s something that we don’t have to run in-house. And we’re analyzing – they’ve assured us that there’s going to be cost savings with us not having to do it. So we’re going to constantly monitor that and make sure that it is. But it’s centralized with Kelly Services now so all substitutes go through Kelly Services instead of through our subdivision that we used to have.”
WMNF: Does that mean you have the appropriate number of full-time teachers, you’re just looking for more substitutes?
“We are always in a shortage for teachers and substitutes [and] bus drivers. We’re always hiring in Hillsborough County School District for those positions. But there has been a very large shortage of substitute teachers for quite some time.”
Griffin says Kelly Services only handles the county’s substitute teacher needs.
