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Isle of Wight County Schools is ahead of its neighbors when it comes to filling teacher vacancies.

IWCS typically employs between 700 and 800 faculty and staff members, and enrolls 5,500 students, across its nine schools and central office. It had 128 vacancies as of the summer, falling to just 16 as of Sept. 19, according to IWCS Human Resources Director Laura Sullivan.

Five days later, on Sept. 26, a Virginia Department of Education report listed the total at 11, or 2.8%.

It’s the fifth lowest vacancy rate in Hampton Roads after Poquoson at 0.7%, York County at 1.4%, Chesapeake at 1.7% and Virginia Beach at 2.4%.

Surry County Public Schools had 10 open positions, one fewer than Isle of Wight, by the same date but had a higher vacancy rate at 12.2%, due to fewer total employees. Surry typically enrolls 600 to 700 students across three schools.

Southampton County, which borders Isle of Wight to the southwest at the Blackwater River, had the highest vacancy rate of all 132 school divisions in the state at 49 available positions, or 27.9%, according to the VDOE report. The city of Franklin, which also borders Isle of Wight to the southwest, had the third highest rate at 21 positions, or 26%.

“When you talk about vacancies, it’s something important to consider with our numbers that we might have some positions … that were budgeted, allocated, and due to student need or student requests, especially at the secondary level, they might not necessarily be a priority to hire right now,” Sullivan told the School Board on Sept. 19.

Among these, Sullivan said, is an instructor for a new high school patient care technician career and technical education program, which while budgeted for the 2024-25 school year won’t start until the second semester in January.

“So that’s a vacancy but not needed for this semester,” Sullivan said.

Of the 16 vacancies as of Sept. 19, four were teaching vacancies, and only two – one at Smithfield Middle School and one at Smithfield High School – were for year-round or fall 2024 courses.

Sullivan said each school’s teachers are picking up extra blocks to cover for the vacancies.

The other 12 vacancies as of Sept. 19 consisted of five instructional assistant positions – one at Carrollton Elementary, one at Carrsville Elementary, two at Georgie Tyler Middle School and one at Smithfield High – two school security officers, one reading interventionist, one school counselor, two school nurses and one clerical position.

Sullivan noted that the vacancies were fairly evenly distributed among the nine schools.

“There’s not one particular school … that’s bearing the weight of those vacancies,” she said.

According to the VDOE website, this is the first school year the state has collected a snapshot of each school division’s vacancy rate as of the first week of school. Previously, the state would collect and release each division’s staffing and vacancy report annually on Oct. 1.

Last year’s staffing and vacancy report for Isle of Wight listed 21 vacancies, or 2.8% of 726 full-time positions, as of that date. Surry had nine vacancies, or 11% of 174 positions unfilled as of Oct. 1, 2023, according to last year’s staffing and vacancy report.