This is Sadie Matteucci’s last year teaching.
After three years at Gainesville High School, she will say goodbye to her ninth-grade environmental science classroom, not from a lack of passion, but for one simple reason:
“I cannot let myself continue to be exploited," she said.
Low teacher pay has long been a grievance leveled against the state legislature, so much so that Florida authorized a bill to expand the minimum base salary in 2020.
Despite this, teachers like Matteucci, 26, struggle. They often work multiple jobs and pay out of pocket to renew their teaching certificates or purchase classroom supplies.
“If they [young teachers] have, you know, just a year, a couple years, they're immediately getting out and moving on, just for those reasons,” Matteucci said.
The decision in March to close Stephen Foster Elementary, Joseph Williams Elementary and Alachua Elementary reignited concerns about the school district’s financial priorities.
For Kelsey Santiago-Sams, a 33-year-old parent of three Stephen Foster Elementary students, the closure came as a disruptive shock.
“It's really hard for me to now go to a whole different school and make myself known,” Santiago-Sams said, “when this is a place where not only my kids have felt comfort, but I felt comfort.”
Aside from the typical struggles of adjusting her kids to a new school environment, Santiago-Sams also carefully considers accommodations. One of her children has an Individualized Education Program, which is a legally binding plan schools develop to support students with learning or developmental needs.
Santiago-Sams said Stephen Foster Elementary is not only accommodating but family-oriented. She knows parents, like the PTA president, who commute from outside the school’s designated zone.
“There are people who choose to come to the school,” Santiago-Sams said. “More than half of these people are choosing this school.”
Because of that, she said, the district’s explanation for closing the school doesn’t add up.
Alachua County School Board member Tina Certain said 393 students are enrolled in Stephen Foster Elementary, with a total capacity of 467 students. According to the school district, the planned school closures are a part of an effort to reduce costs and spend money more efficiently, given the lower enrollment numbers.
Chris Curran, professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Florida, said that other likely factors in the decision to close include fixed expenses such as utilities.
“Obviously, they can have fewer teachers in the building the next year if they don't need as many classrooms in a given grade level,” Curran said. “But there are some other costs that remain sort of fixed, yet the amount of funding coming in is declining in these cases.”
The number of students, he added, affects public school funding, making underenrollment a bigger problem than it may seem.
“If you think, for example, of a given high school or a given elementary school, if it loses 5% of its students, that could be a significant chunk of a budget allocation,” Curran said.
Regardless of a school’s student population, each has baseline costs to cover, such as administrative staff salaries and building maintenance. Merging schools can reduce these expenses.
However, this can also create new problems.
Beyond the anticipated difficulties students like Santiago-Sams’ children may face in adapting to a new school, there’s also the concern about larger classroom sizes with a poor student-to-teacher ratio.
“There's a lot of research that shows smaller classes are generally better for students,” Curran said, referencing the Tennessee STAR experiments that studied class sizes in early grades, “and this kind of makes sense, right? More individualized attention, less distractions.”
Additionally, the ESSER Fund, a U.S. Department of Education initiative to boost school funding in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic’s impact on elementary and secondary education, has ended. Counties increased spending with that money, and now they have to cut back, Curran said.
Curran also pointed out that migration and alternative education options are potential reasons for closure. A localized change in the distribution of enrolled children can lead to underenrollment, and new housing developments can sometimes crowd unprepared schools.
As for alternative education, a system of vouchers introduced by the state in 2023 allows parents to opt out of the public school system, receiving money to use for private or home education. The vouchers are meant to provide more agency to parents and encourage public schools to compete and innovate.
However, because a portion of public education funds is dependent on the number of students enrolled, it ends up stacking the deck against the public system.
Certain criticized the program for directly biting into public funds.
“So the first year, universal vouchers, they had budgeted money,” Certain said, “and the demand was higher than what they budgeted, and so they took money from school districts to fill that gap.”
Certain also emphasized that the state’s centralized authority on budget matters makes it difficult for local authorities to be flexible. For example, regarding the minimum base salary pushed for in 2020, Certain said the change caused friction between the board and unions over an agenda set by the state.
“That upsets teachers who say, ‘I've been here six years and somebody who's just starting is making the same amount of money that I'm making,’” Certain said.
Because the state controls taxes, and taxes fund public schools, districts often lack the power to boost teacher pay, Certain added.
“What we've seen the past couple years is our funding, and the allowance that we're getting is not even keeping up with the CPI,” Certain said, referring to the Consumer Price Index.
Analysis of the Department of Education's data shows that, on average, teachers receive significantly higher salaries than other full-time staff at public schools in Alachua County.
The general lack of sufficient funding makes it difficult for the district to increase teacher pay or keep underenrolled schools open.
If current conditions continue, departing high school teacher Matteucci said, more teachers will leave.
“The powers that be, the district, the school board, the state, expect us to sacrifice ourselves,” she said, “and that's why there are still really phenomenal teachers sticking around, but it's not going to last forever.”
As for Matteucci herself, she plans to move back to New Mexico to live with her father and enter non-profit work in agriculture and food sovereignty.