- April 18, 2024
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With the first day of school just around the corner, Volusia County Schools' is starting the school year with 82 classroom instructional vacancies, a decrease from the 144 vacancies presented to the School Board in May.
VCS Superintendent Scott Fritz said at the School Board meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 10, that number are changing continuously. Overall though, he was pleased with the district's efforts.
"I am extremely proud of our principals and our HR teams," he said. "You know the efforts we've gone to as far as the virtual fairs that we've had. These numbers are incredible."
Mark West, chief human resources officer for VCS, gave the board members an overview on enrollment data for the upcoming school year, with students returning to the classroom on Monday, Aug. 16. As of last week, the school district is expecting 59,887 students to return to brick-and-mortar schools, up 2,167 students from those who were enrolled at the end of the 2020-2021 school year.
“Of course, we will see on that first day when they actually show up," West said.
West said Volusia Online has over 2,000 students enrolled, up 800 from the numbers on the chart presented to the Schoo Board. He said this was because enrollment was extended last week. The school district won't know until the first day of school if those 800 students were originally enrolled in brick-and-mortar.
VCS currently has 30 schools with no classroom vacancies, three of which are in Ormond Beach: Ormond Beach Elementary, Pathways Elementary and Tomoka Elementary.
Overall in district four, there are 8 classroom vacancies, and 4 non-classroom instructional vacancies. Teachers began pre-planning on Tuesday, Aug. 10, and thus a hiring freeze on all instructional hiring was put in place. Of the 82 classroom vacancies, nine were added in the last week due to hiring "no-shows."
Fritz said the school district is developing a plan to make sure all classroom vacancies are addressed for the first day of school. That entails working with the school teams first, as the district wants there to be consistency regarding instructional personnel, but Fritz said the district may also send some of its own employees to lend a hand as well.
"We don't want our district people to be going out to schools forever, but they can go out for a couple of days to help out to get things ready if needed," Fritz said. "We'll be meeting with our principals between now and Friday, developing those plans so that every child has a teacher in their classroom for Aug. 16."
