Faced with shrinking enrollment, behavior coach, career advisor and substitute teacher positions will go unfilled.
By Noah Vinsky
Original Air Date: June 25, 2025
Host: It’s official now: The Sarasota School District is facing a financial crisis. In an email to employees, the superintendent announced a hiring freeze, and WSLR News reporter Noah Vinsky has the details.
Noah Vinsky: State funding pressures, rising costs, revenue challenges and a negative enrollment outlook—these are all challenges that superintendent Terry Connor says Sarasota County Schools are facing during the next school year. The district’s solution: A hiring freeze and positional cuts.
Terry Connor
Connor sent an email on June 12 informing teachers and administrators of the cost-control measures. According to Connor, the cuts are necessary to “safe-guard the long term financial health of our district.”
The email says the positions to be cut include behavior coaches, career advisors, custodians and substitute teachers.
A district spokesperson would not comment on when the hiring freeze would be lifted.
The cuts are a continuation for what’s been a challenging few years for Florida public schools. Districts statewide are facing budget restrictions and staffing shortages. For the second straight year, the National Education Association ranked Florida 50th in the nation in teacher pay.
A Sarasota High classroom.
Lawmakers in the just-finished session agreed to pour $29 billion into K-12 education, a $945 million increase from last year. It raises the per-student funding by 1.59% from the last fiscal year.
But Connor says that’s not enough adjusted for inflation. He also pointed to rising costs for utilities, health insurance and construction. Budget shortcomings can also be attributed to a drop in public school enrollments. The Florida Education Estimating Conference projects a decline in public school enrollment over the next few years.
The pressure on state funding for public schools is also rising due to Florida’s voucher program. The new program now pays parents around $8,000 a year for homeschooling or sending their children to private schools.
The “Save Our Teachers Act” proposed to raise statewide teacher salaries to a minimum of $65,000. It failed to pass through the legislature this year, much to the dismay of Sarasota County School Board member Tom Edwards.
Tom Edwards: The legislature did not do one thing for teacher salaries, and that is despicable. That is despicable.
NV: Sarasota County teachers are already among the highest paid in the state. The district agreed on a $60,000 minimum teacher salary for the 2025-26 school year as part of its next contract last November. Board member Liz Barker accused the state for not pulling their weight on looking out for public school teachers.
Liz Barker: In a state as wealthy as Florida, to not pay our teachers a living wage is criminal. I am very grateful that, here in Sarasota, we have a generous community, and we did pass the referendum, and we had already negotiated the teacher raises for this coming school year. I cannot tell you how happy I am that our teachers in Sarasota will have that funding from us, but it’s outrageous that at the state level they aren’t given the same respect.
NV: Connor said the district is doing “everything possible” to honor those raises negotiated last year.
Reporting for WSLR News, Noah Vinsky.
WSLR News aims to keep the local community informed with our 1/2 hour local news show, quarterly newspaper and social media feeds. The local news broadcast airs on Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm.