The mission of Florida’s educational system is to increase the proficiency of all students by allowing them to expand their knowledge and skills through learning opportunities. This mission is dependent upon Florida’s public schools recruiting and retaining qualified teachers. In Florida, there is a critical teacher shortage. Certain areas of the state have been unable to recruit a sufficient number of classroom teachers by the beginning of this school year. This problem is especially pronounced for certain subject areas, such as mathematics, science and computer science. Effective July 1, 2019, the legislature provided school districts funding to recruit classroom teachers who are content experts in certain subjects. The criteria to identify content experts must be established by the Department of Education. However, most public schools in Florida are set to begin on August 12th and there is not sufficient time before school starts to establish this criteria by the normal rulemaking process. Unless this criteria is established by emergency rule, school districts will be unable to utilize these funds to recruit teachers by the beginning of this school year. Moreover, unless the criteria is set by emergency rule and recruitment awards provided by school districts, school districts will be unable to distribute recognition awards to their K-12 instructional personnel. The legislature appropriated funds this year to school districts so that the districts can recognize K-12 instructional personnel who are rated as effective or highly effective based upon criteria and policies set by the school districts. However, these funds cannot be distributed by the school districts until the recruitment awards have been made. Based upon the foregoing, the agency finds an immediate danger to public welfare requires an emergency rule in order to assist with recruiting teachers to Florida to mitigate the teacher shortages in critical areas.