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If you've got teaching experience and considered packing up and leaving the mainland United States behind for the sunshine and surf of Hawaii, now's your chance.
The Hawaii Department of Education is scrambling to fill a growing teacher shortage, Hawaii News Now reported. Officials expect to have as many as 1,600 vacancies to fill come fall and they hope to fill many of the positions with recruits from the continental U.S.
Officials are looking for special education, secondary mathematics and secondary science teachers, along with educators interested in working across the state's rural areas and on Oahu's Leeward Coast, according to Hawaii New Now.
The teacher turnover rate is high, however, with an estimated 40 percent of teachers leaving within five years.
“Hawaii has one of the highest teacher turnover rates in the nation and this is more so for people that come from the mainland,” Corey Rosenlee, president of the Hawaii State Teachers, told Hawaii News Now. “They say 'I can't live here,' and they leave and we have to go back and recruit, and this cycle just continually happens.”
Mainland recruits often leave after a short period of time as they have difficulty adjusting to the state's high cost of living, the TV station reported.
Public school teachers in Hawaii rank 30th in pay nationwide with an estimated average salary of $54.300, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Meanwhile, Hawaii ranks highest in cost-of-living, according to CNBC.
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