Posted by  Marcey Mihalo, Floyd, VA on 06/26  at  09:19 AM

My husband and I are both teachers in Roanoke Co.,VA.  We want to move to Florida. There isn’t a county that we could live in on the combined salary that would afford us a home for our 2 kids and an ocassional visit from the grandparents.  House and car insurance-ridiculous, cost of living index-insane.  Here are two willing teachers, wanting to move and teach in Florida. Financially—no way we would survive.  The only new teachers FL will get are those whose spouses can supplement the income by at least 2x what a teacher makes, or those that are teachers for the wrong reasons and just need a steady income and sure employement. Shame, shame, shame. By the way—I make 3000 more in Roanoke than I would in all of the many counties I explored.

Posted by  Jennifer Morley, Tampa on 06/12  at  06:51 AM

Offering a living wage to teachers is not “throwing money at the problem.”  Over 50% teachers leave before five years.  What other degreed profession has such an abysmal retention rate?  Competent business people know it is much more expensive to train a new hire than to keep an old one. It is costly to allow half of your qualified employees to depart the profession.
A $31,000 starting salary equals a paycheck of barely $500 weekly after taxes, and zero pay summers. In five years, the weekly pay rises to about $583 weekly after taxes. This, for a job that garners little respect from the public, has hours of additional unpaid paperwork, meetings, and trainings.

Posted by  Bryan Whiteside, Tampa on 04/21  at  05:44 PM

Give current teachers raises to make the teaching profession/calling more attractive to qualified individuals. I think that we need to reward top performing, highly educated teachers.

Posted by  Brian Chandler, Dunedin, FL on 03/09  at  08:21 PM

I think the idea of teaching and the support we get from families, public, and administrators has diminished the attraction to the carrer.  It is becoming a job now.  Your soon scraping the bottom of the barrel and with that comes low test scores, devalued education, and minimal interest.  How about a new appreciation for the position and socitial change in attitude.

Posted by  Mary Fisher, Tampa Bay Florida on 03/04  at  08:13 AM

A dangerous alternative can be just allow deadbeat jokes like the teachers who rape our children (Yes I said rape)
and then have clueless quack lawyers beg that this one is drop dead gorgeous and can’t stand to go to jail… Boo HOO. What a mess . There is NO EASY ANSWER>  People who do not want to pay good money to educate their children deserve exactly what they pay for…

Posted by  Rick Clewis, Tampa, Florida on 02/10  at  10:57 PM

Support for teachers with a non-education major is lacking. Increased effort is needed to assure that these career-changers are able to navigate the school maze.

Posted by  Elba Matthies, Tampa on 02/05  at  02:02 PM

I am a teacher. Increase my salary, where I am not living paycheck to paycheck and my husband does not have to work 2 jobs to support our 3 children. Afterwards, come ask me what I think about those laptops.

Posted by  John, Port Richey, FL on 02/01  at  07:09 AM

Instead of the Governor spending $239 on computers for teachers and other fluff.  Why not spend it all towards salaries.  I love my job as a teacher but if I had it to do all over.  I would have chosen a career that would have allowed me to support my family by working one job not two or three.

Posted by  STANLEY REYOR, SUN CITY CENTER FL. on 01/31  at  10:44 PM

Just pay them a good salary and they will come!

Posted by  Tracy Steinberg, Valrico on 01/31  at  07:22 PM

Anyone can walk in off the street and be teachers?

Go volunteer to walk in a teacher’s shoes for just one week.  Go to work at 6:30 AM, deal with 180 different personalities in one day, their parents at the end of the day, and then 5 hours of grading after that.  Then, start planning for the next day only to get up and start it all over again.  After five days, think about if this is something you are willing to do for the next 30 years.

Teachers are a rare breed who deal with your most precious posessions every day.  Don’t consider it “throwing money.”  Instead consider it compensation for a difficult job that requires more love and dedication each day than the average person is willing to give in a year.

Posted by  T. Goode, Brandon, Fl on 01/31  at  07:18 PM

How would we know if “throwing money” at the situation would work when it has never been tried? 

Do you people realize that although teachers make a somewhat competitive starting salary here in Florida, there are no guaranteed step raises like in other states, and most only increase by a couple of hundred dollars a year while the cost of insurance for a teacher’s family has increased to about $600 a month?

What other profession’s salaries start at $31,500 but don’t reach $40,000 after 20 years in the field?

Want to retain teachers?  Offer guaranteed step raises and respectable benefit packages.

Posted by  Dr. John S. Hill, Dallas, TX on 01/30  at  06:03 PM

Does “throwing money at it” have a meaning?  Does it mean fund it adequately?  Or does it mean lets stop all funding and just be really creative???

Posted by  Joe Rose, Valrico, FL on 01/30  at  11:56 AM

Always the lamentation about the shortage of teachers. However, the process for a non-education major to get certification is so convoluted as to defy description. The DOE needs to streamline the process. There is also the practice of hiring out of state teachers instead of local people. I don’t think throwing more money at the problem will solve it.