Are the rookies ready? New Miami-Dade teachers get pep talk and training for class debut
During a national teacher shortage and a tumultuous time for Florida educators, about 400 new Miami-Dade County schoolteachers filed into the Hialeah Gardens High auditorium on Monday to start a week-long orientation before the 2023-24 school year.
The public school district, which still has about 300 instructional vacancies to fill before the first day of class on Aug. 17, greeted them with pomp and circumstance.
Last year, the school district, the third largest in the nation, also welcomed about 400 new teachers at orientation. On Aug. 4 last year, 13 days before the school year started Aug. 17, the school district had 280 instructional vacancies, compared to 525 at the same time in 2021.
The school’s Gladiator Band performed for them on a stage decorated with green and gold balloons and three huge white letters: N-T-O, standing for New Teacher Orientation.
Miami-Dade School Board Chair Maria Teresa Rojas led them in a chant, and Superintendent Jose Dotres promoted the school district’s accomplishments and recounted other teachers’ success stories in a speech.
“Give me a T!” Rojas screamed, throwing both hands up in the air in fist pumps.
“T!” the rookies answered from the audience.
Together, they spelled T-E-A-C-H-E-R.
In her speech, Rojas also recalled how she launched her decades-long career with Miami-Dade Public Schools in the 1970s, sharing that her employee number began with a zero and how she felt “mixed emotions” during her own orientation.
“I couldn’t wait to start teaching, but at the same time I was afraid that I couldn’t do everything that I wanted to do,” she said with a smile.
Combating teacher shortage
Teachers will learn about topics like benefits and compensation, the Florida retirement system, technology, mentoring, lesson planning, the teacher evaluation system, classroom management and content-specific professional learning, said Miami-Dade school district spokeswoman Jackie Calzadilla.
Dotres described the orientation as “a development week so that they’re ready when they enter their classrooms.”
“We’re excited that they’re joining us,” Dotres said. “We’re all confident that they will be prepared, that they are going to do the very best for the students in this community.”
Because of the pandemic struggles and low wages, fewer and fewer people want to teach.
The National Education Association, the nation’s largest union representing nearly three million educators, reported in its latest survey in February that 90% of its members reported feeling burnout as a serious problem and 55% of its members plan to leave the profession sooner than planned after COVID-19.
Florida ranks 48th in the nation for average teacher pay, according to the Florida Education Association.
Rojas said Monday that the school district needs to “recruit, retain, reward and respect” teachers. The audience burst out clapping in response.
To combat the teacher shortage, Dotres said the district built a grow-your-own program to encourage non-instructional personnel to become teachers.
The district also partnered with Miami Dade College to create teacher academies in 51 high schools so students can take dual enrollment college-credit classes that directly relate to teaching and to hire college students majoring in education during their internships instead of after graduation.
Facing state pressures
Amanda Rosario, a Hialeah native, attended the orientation Monday. She recently graduated from the University of Florida, and this upcoming year she will teach intensive reading in sixth and seventh grade at Hialeah Middle School.
“I’ve always wanted to be a teacher ever since I was a little girl,” the 23-year-old said. “I’m proud of myself for being here.”
She said she isn’t that concerned about state efforts to ban certain books because she learned in college how to judge which books would work for each level.
“It would probably be the biggest challenge, but I’m not too worried about it,” she said.
Other teachers, however, report feeling pressured by recent laws and directions coming from the state Legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration.
Last month, the Department of Education, which governs K-12 public schools, generated an uproar when it approved new Black history standards that suggested some slaves benefited from their enslavement. That came on top of book challenges by parents and a new law that restricts the way that teachers and students can use their preferred pronouns in schools.
Dotres said the district will train its employees on how to navigate difficult situations related to the political climate and hopes they rely on one another to solve them.
“We’re in a landscape where a lot things are happening, and a lot of folks are being impacted,” Dotres said. “One of the things that we’re doing in our school district is that when teachers or administrators encounter sensitive, complex issues, we have to rely on a thought partner.”
