The Florida Department of Education recently released the school grades for each district, revealing significant improvements in education across our local areas.
The Lee County School District showed notable progress. Four schools that were previously rated as D have now improved to C ratings.
These schools are Amanecer Elementary, Edgewood Elementary, J. Colin English Elementary and Lemuel Teal Middle School.
The district maintained its overall B grade for the year.
District officials reported hiring more than 400 teachers since April to address the nearly 600 vacancies, leaving only 159 openings left to fill.
Collier County and Charlotte County also experienced gains.
In Collier, 12 schools improved their grades from B to A, and the district achieved an overall A rating.
This makes Collier the only district in Southwest Florida to receive an A.
Collier is also ranked sixth of out 67 school districts in Florida.
Charlotte County earned an overall B rating, which is the closest they have ever been to securing an A.
Nine schools in the district earned an A rating, marking a 12-year high for Charlotte County.
These school ratings are determined by 12 factors, including achievement, learning gains and graduation rate.
As the new school year approaches, teacher shortages remain a concern, particularly in Lee County.
Last year, the district was short more than 160 teachers at this time.
Efforts are underway to assess the current needs of each district to ensure readiness for the start of the school year in August.
How many teaching position vacancies are in each county?
WINK News contacted the Lee, Collier and Charlotte counties schools regarding teacher vacancies, as the 2025-2026 school year is set to begin in August.
Charlotte County provided a list of teaching vacancies. A total of 24 vacancies are reported.
They are broken down as follows:
- Elementary: 14
- Middle: 4
- High: 5
- Center Schools: 1
In Collier County, due to a large influx of teacher onboarding, they will provide an updated list of vacancies teachers by the end of the week.
In Lee County, they provided a statement regarding the number of vacancies going into the new school year.
“We started hiring for the 25-26 school year on April 24 and had 575 instructional vacancies. Today, we have 159, so we have hired or retained 416 teachers. On July 8, 2024, we had 297 instructional vacancies, so we have nearly cut the number in half from a year ago.
We have 200 candidates on our talent search list we are beginning to match to schools this week. With just over four weeks until school starts, we have the potential to fill many if not all the vacancies.
Here is a breakdown by region, not by grade level:
- North 29
- East 70
- South 28
- West 21
- Special Centers 11
According to Lee County, the trend is turning positive, and their human resources team is working overtime to fill every vacant position before August 11.