Every instructional and support employee from Mary Esther Elementary and Longwood Elementary has been placed for the 2026-27 school year, Okaloosa County School District Human Resources Director Lindsay Maxey told the school board during a Monday workshop.

• “All of those people have been placed,” Maxey said in response to a question from board member Parker Destin about the status of staff from the two closing schools. She said the district was “ahead of schedule” in finalizing placements, meeting its goal of informing employees of their next assignments before the summer.

The board voted unanimously on Feb. 23 to close Longwood and Mary Esther elementary schools and rezone affected students to Shalimar, Kenwood, Wright, Elliott Point, Edwins and Florosa elementary schools. At the time of that decision, district leaders pledged that employees in good standing would have positions for the upcoming school year.

• Maxey said operations crews, led by Asst. Superintendent Grant Meyer’s team, are now moving employees’ belongings into their new classrooms and work spaces.

Hiring season by the numbers

Maxey provided a broader hiring update showing the district has processed 150 instructional transactions so far this season. Those include seven new hires, 78 transfers and 65 reassignments. Another 16 instructional offers are pending, and 62 applicants who have accepted offers are still completing paperwork.

The district currently has 87 open instructional positions spread across elementary and secondary schools. Maxey said the district has more openings in the north end of the county than in the south end, echoing what she described as Assistant Superintendent John Spolski’s “tale of two counties.”

For support staff, the district has 74 vacancies for paraprofessionals, custodians and bus monitors, plus 43 open bus driver positions. So far, the district has hired 26 new support employees and processed 30 support reassignments. Maxey noted that the bus driver vacancy figure includes teachers and support employees who drive buses for certain schools.

No ‘Teach at the Beach’ this year

In response to a question from board member Tim Bryant, Maxey said the district does not plan to hold its “Teach at the Beach” instructional job fair this year.

• “I think we are in a really good spot where we are not going to need to,” she said, adding the district will reevaluate the decision.

The district does plan to repeat last summer’s bus driver job fair, which allowed prospective drivers to try driving a bus in a controlled environment. Maxey said the district will work with the transportation department to set a date and will heavily advertise the event.

She said the district may also conduct smaller, specialized job fairs targeted at specific schools and positions during the next school year, such as recruiting paraprofessionals for Silver Sands and Edwins schools by going directly into those neighborhoods.

Hiring approach tied to enrollment decline

Superintendent Marcus Chambers connected the hiring strategy to the district’s enrollment challenges. He said the district historically hires roughly 200 to 250 employees per year, but is reducing that number rather than cutting existing staff as enrollment falls.

“If within a year we go down about 1,100 students, then that also means that there’s going to be staffing that’s going to be reduced by that as well,” Chambers said. “If we don’t hire as many – so we’re not sending home people – we’re just not hiring as many as we historically have done.”

Chambers said the decision not to hold a districtwide instructional job fair was made months ago, with the priority being to “first take care of our own and then, if necessary, we do the others.”

The district has been navigating significant enrollment and budget pressures, including a 452-student decline reported in October that resulted in a $4 million funding hit, and the growing impact of Florida’s Family Empowerment Scholarship program. The number of scholarship recipients in Okaloosa rose from approximately 1,800 students to about 3,000 in a single year.

Chambers said the smooth handling of placements required coordination across multiple departments and the employee union.

• “For this to occur smoothly, and smoothly doesn’t mean that everything went flawlessly, you have to have the HR department, you have to have allocations, you have to have the union and everyone communicating,” Chambers said.

Board Chairwoman Linda Evanchyk thanked Maxey and her staff for their work.

“You’ve done a fantastic job,” Evanchyk said.