ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – More than 16,000 students returned to face-to-face learning Tuesday morning for the second quarter, choosing to move back into the classroom from virtual learning.
However, for some students, they may not have the same teacher. Orange County Public Schools is reporting that 139 teachers have either resigned or retired since the first day of face-to-face learning, which was on Aug. 21.
Now retired Ocoee High School teacher Robin Stewart-Ciardi is one of them.
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“I got a call on a Wednesday and she said, ‘There were more students coming back than they had teachers,’” Stewart-Ciardi recalled from a conversation with her principal. “My options were to go back, to take a leave of absence with no pay or retire.”
Stewart-Ciardi decided to retire.
“The day after I suggested I was going to retire, I got an email that said, ‘Well let me know tomorrow so I can post your position,’” she added. “I feel like the slap in the face, the sting was so hard. Nobody fought for me.”
However, she and her family have fought to keep COVID-19 out of their home. Stewart-Ciardi’s husband is high-risk, she also has asthma and together they have a 9th grader and a 5-year old daughter a result of a later-in-life pregnancy through a surrogate.
“I don’t want to be a widow, I want us to raise these kids,” she said. “It wasn’t my choice but I had to put my family first.”
Stewart-Ciardi is one of the 139 teachers who have retired or resigned, according to numbers provided by Orange County Public Schools. They also provided data from the fall semester of 2019 that showed 110 teachers also retired or resigned, however, that was for the entire semester August through January. The number this year is from the first quarter alone.
The district could not provide answers as to how many teachers were required to come back face-to-face due to the increase in students coming back for the second quarter or couldn’t answer how many teacher vacancies there currently are. A spokesperson did say they do not have a teacher shortage, though.
“No, we do not have a teacher shortage,” said Michael Ollendorff, OCPS Media Relations manager.
Ollendorff said they couldn’t answer how many teacher vacancies there are due to the current “leveling” of student enrollment and assignments.
The president of the Orange County Classroom Teacher’s union, Wendy Doromal, believes the teacher losses will lead to larger class sizes and more substitute teachers filling those permanent roles.
“I’m sure parents may not know about this. They might want to ask what are the substitute policies in school? What are the class sizes now for face-to-face learning? What is the distance? What precautions are they taking?” Doromal said.
News 6 also reached out to Kelly Services, a contractor with OCPS that hires and fills the substitute teacher pool. A spokesperson said currently they have 1,000 substitute teachers in a pool to fill positions and 65 of them are on long-term assignments in the district, that is longer than 10 days.
“In addition to filling in for full-time teachers, substitute teachers are subbing for other substitutes. Substitute teachers share the same personal concerns as full-time subs regarding their family’s or their own health,” said Anna Schryver of Kelly Services. “District leaders around the country – including Orange County – are under immense pressure to safely and equitably deliver quality education amid one of the most challenging school years in generations.”