TAMPA, Fla. - What happens if a teacher is under quarantine and a substitute is needed?

With an existing teacher shortage before the outbreak, will there be enough?

Kelly Education helps districts finding substitutes.

They work with Hillsborough, Hernando, Polk, Orange and several other school districts in Florida.

Cheryl Courier is Vice President of the southeast region of Kelly Education.

She said from now until the time school starts they will hire 100 to 200 substitutes a week.

Already they've found out how many are willing to come back to campus.

"About 70% of them are more than happy to return to brick and mortar,” said Courier. “And when you consider, if you look at the Hillsborough numbers about 50% of those teachers are going to be teaching virtual because parents have chosen about 50%, right. So the need will probably go down because of a lot students being virtual. But if the cases go up, we have a big enough pool to be able to handle it."

Although, Courier said the situation is fluid because school districts are still surveying their own teachers to find out who is willing to come back to teach on campus.

Hillsborough and Polk officials told Spectrum Bay News 9 they are currently surveying their staff and waiting on this information.

“At this time, we are still surveying our employees on this topic,” said a Polk County Schools spokesperson in an email.  “This information will be very important as we consider our plans for the upcoming school year.”

In Citrus County, officials said their absences/resignations/retirements haven’t increased.

“At this time we only have a few instructional openings,” said a Citrus spokesperson in an email.  “So far, we only have two substitutes that have told us they are not going to be returning.  Substitutes have until mid-August though to submit their letter of intent.”

Even before the pandemic, school districts dealt with teacher shortages.

In a survey from last year, schools were only able to fill half the absences nationwide.