DELAND, Fla. – Volusia County Schools’ officials said they are not leaving any stone unturned when it comes to filling the more than 700 vacancies they have throughout the district.
The district is holding two job fairs this week, including one Tuesday in Deltona. The other will be held Wednesday evening starting at 4 p.m. at Horizon Elementary School on Hidden Lake Drive in Port Orange. You can register for the job fair HERE.
More than half of the positions they need to fill are instructor-based roles.
Tiffany Fuller, recruitment and retention coordinator for Volusia County Schools, said with all of the challenges teachers face, it might be more than they bargained for. She said they are taking a multi-layer approach when it comes to recruiting and retaining their teachers.
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“We’re definitely looking to add more support with our new teacher academy that we’re gonna be launching, that’s going to have mentor support available at the school level for all of our new hires,” Fuller said.
Part of that approach also includes not only thinking outside the box, but thinking outside of the country. Fuller said 20 international teachers will start this fall.
“So that is just yet another avenue that we’re looking at to help fill that pipeline for teachers,” Fuller said. “We’re working not only with international agencies, just like we’re working with our university partners. It’s not an all-one thing, like I said, right? It’s that multi-level approach to making sure that we’re able to support what’s coming into the classroom.”
But local candidates are also interested, like Nicole Stojanovic who is from the area and wants to teach high school social studies.
“I really want to change people’s life or gives kids an opportunity to better themselves that they might not get outside of the school,” Stojanovic said.
While 700 vacancies sound like a lot, school board member Ruben Colón said it’s nothing they haven’t dealt with before.
“The reality is that we’re sort of used to this, even though the numbers’ slightly higher, we’re used to folks retiring at the end of the year,” Colón said.
Tuesday’s job fair wasn’t solely focused on instructor roles. More than 300 support roles are also open including nearly 100 custodial positions. Colón said those positions are part of the reason why the total number of vacancies is so high.
“For many years we were contracted with a private company for the custodial services and grounds maintenance of our schools, and so we’re bringing those back in-house,” Colón said. “We found that having that ownership, having them be a part of the team was essential and it was something that we were missing. So we’ve, for the last two years had a pilot project, and this is the first year where all the custodians are going to be employees of Volusia County Schools.”
Fuller said the district had more than 100 participants at Tuesday’s job fair and was able to make more than 20 hires which include teacher, paraprofessional, maintenance and custodial positions.
View all vacancies, register and apply on the Volusia County Schools website.
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