School District says it has met goal of filling teacher vacancies
Project Believe helped put a certified teacher in every classroom, officials say
The School District of Lee County says it has filled its April 2025 baseline of 575 identified instructional vacancies.
“I am so proud of the work of all the groups. It truly is a new day in the School District of Lee County. It really stabilizes the instructional workforce,” Chief of Human Resources Shanna Johnston said this week.
Although the 575 vacancies were tracked down to zero, an organization of the district’s size has employee’s retiring, moving or staying home on medical or parental leave, which creates vacancies.
The district refers this to the “moving target,” resulting in rolling vacancies.
“We do have 25 vacancies right now, which is a huge improvement from this time last year. We were at 190 vacancies,” Johnston said Monday. “The 25 vacancies are less than a half percent of almost 6,000 teachers. I would put that as we stabilized our instructional staff at this point. Our stats are some of the best in the nation.”
To fill those vacancies, the talent acquisition team has not stopped, they continue to source and recruit candidates as a vacancy becomes open.
“It’s a more efficient system. We are feeding principals viable candidates and they are able to hire more quickly,” she said.
The 575 vacancies were filled through the district’s initiative Project Believe.
She said going from 575 vacancies to zero was a team effort with the school board, superintendent, cabinet members, principals and the community.
“Our talent acquisition team, I would say, is top of the nation,” Johnston said.
One of the strategies shared was “everyone is a recruiter.”
They made yard signs that principals and board members used, sharing that the district was hiring – easy access to hiring.
“Each school and location developed a recruitment team of their own teachers and staff,” Johnston said. “We sent them social media posts of their openings where they could share how great it was to work at their school. That was one method, school-based recruitment teams.”
Another method was the grow your own program. The district identified paraprofessionals who had a bachelor’s degree, as well as others they could invite to take advantage of the state-offered certification pathway.
Johnston said when she took over the human resource division in July, the goal stemmed around retaining 95% of teachers. Each of the eight departments in human resources had a goal specific to the retention goal. From that, one of the disciplines – escalation cadence of accountability, was used.
There were weekly emails sent to principals with stats – openings by region and school, and schools that had success of reaching 100% of teachers hired.
“We started sharing their strategies and best practices and partnered them with schools that may have been struggling,” Johnston said. “Truly a one district team effort to get these vacancies filled.”
The district had the highest teacher increase in the state with negotiated compensation this year at 7%, which Johnston said is a big piece of the puzzle.
The primary goal is to make sure there is a certified teacher in every classroom – even the 25 “rolling” vacancies.
The expectations are that every vacancy is covered by certified teachers in-house, or through Kelly Guest Services, she said.
This differs from when a teacher is sick, on leave, or on vacation. Those classrooms are covered by regular substitute teachers.
“Our mission is simple: a certified teacher for every student in Lee County,” Superintendent Dr. Denise Carlin said in a prepared statement. “By sharing these internal metrics, we want the community to see the dedicated work happening behind the scenes every day. Recruitment is a collaborative effort between our Human Resources division, central office, and our school leadership teams.”
Current job openings can be viewed and applied for by visiting www.Leeschools.net/Careers.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com