Volusia County Schools detail new workforce readiness program for students

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — Schools in Volusia County have cut their teacher shortage by half compared to this time last year.

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It comes even after 283 teachers had to be reassigned due to a loss in federal funding.

Channel 9 anchor Karla Ray sat down with the Volusia County Public Schools superintendent to find out how a focus on career readiness should help retain those teachers and cut down on absenteeism.

Watch: 9 Investigates Central Florida’s teacher shortage

When the school buses start rolling in Volusia County, the districts’ staffing shortages will be a fraction of what we saw last year or two years ago, when Dr. Carmen Balgobin first assumed her permanent role as superintendent.

“Our recruit support and retained department has been working really diligently with our community having these job fairs, but also to talk about, you know, Volusia County and who we are, what we’re about, what they can expect,” Balgobin said.

She said the district’s focus is no longer just about college readiness, but has a much bigger focus on workforce readiness, adding new career and technical education options for students this year.

“If we create programs and we have programs in our school that really captures the interest of our students, then again, going back to, you know, the students sees the relevance of why they’re attending school,” Balgobin said.

Read: These new schools are opening this school year

In late July, school board members reviewed the budget for this year, which no longer includes some $200 million in COVID-19-era funding.

That resulted in more than 280 teachers being reassigned before this fall.

Watch: Brevard Public Schools superintendent talks one-on-one with Channel 9

In an effort to keep students from losing classroom time due to discipline issues, specific to vaping, the district is rolling out a new course for first-time offenders.

They are also partnering with the state attorney’s office for a PSA to try to curb the vaping problem in schools.

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