Three weeks into the 2025-26 school year, Polk County Public Schools has about 300 teacher vacancies and 490 long-term substitutes, according to district spokesman Kyle Kennedy.
Combined, that’s about 1 in 8 of the district’s 6,200 teaching positions.
Not unusual
This number of teacher vacancies isn’t unusual for Polk County. There were about 330 last year and 311 the year before.
“The number fluctuates by the day,” Kennedy said. “We are sorting some of the data to try and get more accurate counts.”…