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Vacancy Cost Calculator

An open special education position does not stop the service minutes on students’ IEPs.

See what is owed while it stays open, what covering it by contract costs, and what a replacement costs to recruit.

From PULSE for Education. Your figures stay in your browser.

The open position

For example, school psychologist or speech-language pathologist.

Months the position is open

months

Weekly service minutes the position owes students

The direct and consultation minutes on the IEPs this position serves.

minutes

Hourly rate the district pays for contracted coverage

From your contract with the agency. There is no default: the rate is yours.

dollars

School weeks in a month

An estimate you can change. A 180-day school year is 36 school weeks across about nine months, or about 4 school weeks a month.

weeks

Recruiting and onboarding cost, low end

An estimate you can change. Published estimate: $12,000 to $25,000 when a teacher leaves a district unexpectedly, depending on the size of the district (Eric Oxford, The Measurement Gap in Six Minutes, 2026).

dollars

Recruiting and onboarding cost, high end

Narrow the range to what your district has seen.

dollars

Workforce gap

Enter how many months the position has been, or will be, open.

Made with the free Vacancy Cost Calculator from PULSE for Education, pulseforeducation.com/tools/vacancy-cost. The figures are the ones entered on this page.

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