As time quickly ticks down until the first day of school, pressure rises for the metro Atlanta districts to fill their outstanding teacher vacancies. DeKalb County schools are significantly struggling to fill spots, with roughly 350 vacancies; Fulton County with 307 spots; Gwinnett County with 252 spots; and Atlanta Public Schools with 114 spots.
While there is no doubt that this shortage is partially due to the pandemic, data shows that interest in becoming a teacher has also drastically declined over the years. In lieu of this crisis, districts have put forward incentives and generated job fairs to increase hiring.