Cameron Academy Hired 18 Real Estate Instructors in One Year and Is Still Hiring

The largest single-year teaching expansion in the school's 23 years, staffed entirely with practitioners who have closed real transactions.

ORLANDO, FL, UNITED STATES, September 15, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Cameron Academy of Real Estate has hired 18 instructors across Florida this year, staffing classrooms in Tampa, Brandon, Palm Harbor, Spring Hill, Trinity, Orlando, Kissimmee, Waterford Lakes, Clermont, Wildwood, Palm Coast, Kendall and Key Largo.

It's the largest single-year expansion of teaching staff in the school's 23-year history, eighteen hires at a company of 35, and it follows a run of campus partnerships that took the school to 15 locations statewide, every one of them with a firm that wanted licensing classes in its own market.

"Eighteen people isn't a headcount to me. It's eighteen classrooms that now have somebody in front of them who's actually done this work," said Michael Cameron Sidawi, the school's owner and director and a licensed Florida real estate broker. "You can't scale teaching by adding software. You scale it by finding people who know the business and can hold a room."

A SCHOOL THAT HIRES INSTEAD OF SELLING

Cameron Academy has been family owned and operated in Florida since Linda Cameron founded it in 2003 and has taught more than 100,000 students across 800-plus licensing and continuing education courses offered in all fifty states through its partner network. It stayed open through the 2008 housing collapse. Over the past decade, as most of Florida's independent real estate schools were absorbed into a single national education company, Cameron Academy stayed private and added rooms.

WHAT THE SCHOOL HIRES FOR

The school has posted real estate instructor jobs in Florida and says it is still interviewing practicing agents.

"We hire practitioners, not lecturers," Sidawi said. "If you've closed transactions and you can explain why one fell apart, you can teach for us. Students can tell within ten minutes whether the person at the front of the room has done the job."

New hires teach the same FREC-approved Florida real estate pre-license course used at every site, delivered in person, livestreamed and online. Openings span all fifteen Florida real estate school locations, from the Gulf coast to the Keys.

Sidawi still teaches his own classes after 23 years with the school, and has published two books for the industry, "Real Estate Agent Guide: Thriving in a Down Market" and "The Midlife Method: Life's Too Short for Later."

THE TOOLS THEY WILL TEACH WITH

Cameron Academy was first in Florida to move its testing onto computers, built the first mobile exam-prep app for real estate students in the United States in 2013, and was first in the state to livestream classes. The school is now rebuilding that original app as the foundation of a wider student platform intended to hold exam preparation and coursework in one place. The school has it slated for release by the end of Q4 2026.

WHY IT MATTERS

The state's own numbers describe the problem. Florida's most recent published annual report put 94,473 real estate licensees in inactive status against 357,638 active, and the inactive figure has risen every year the department has published it. In May 2025 the state graded 5,012 sales associate examinations and passed 1,944 of them.

Cameron Academy builds its campuses with working firms, so students meet brokers, attorneys and closing agents before they finish the course.

"The exam is the easy part," Sidawi said. "Staying in this business is the hard part, and nobody teaches that from a script. An instructor who's only ever taught can't tell you what the third year feels like."

HIRING AS A GROWTH SIGNAL

The school says it intends to hire at the same rate next year and has begun the same conversation with operators outside Florida for the first time in its history.

"We turned down a buyer. We're not looking for another one," Sidawi said. "We're looking for people who want to build this with us, and that includes the ones who write checks."

WHAT A NEW INSTRUCTOR HAS TO LEARN FIRST

Practitioners get hired for what they've closed. Then they have to learn how Cameron Academy actually teaches, which is not lecturing.

The school built its own method decades ago and still trains to it: songs, rhythms, repeated phrasing and stories, engineered so a student can pull a rule back up under exam pressure and, more importantly, on a live deal three years later. Much of that methodology has since been absorbed into the industry's leading course materials, and instructors and education providers across the field now teach with it.

"Every one of the eighteen had to learn it," Sidawi said. "You can be the best agent in your county and still stand up there and lose the room. Chanting a rule sounds ridiculous for about four minutes, and then a student recites it back to you eleven months later at the closing table."

WHY PEOPLE KEEP SAYING YES

Ask Sidawi how a 23-year-old school suddenly needed 18 more instructors and he doesn't reach for a growth chart.

"Nobody built this on a whiteboard. We got here one student at a time, and most of them came because somebody they trust told them to," he said. "That's a slow way to grow. It's also the only way I know that holds up."

THE SEATS NOBODY PAYS FOR

Some of the students those 18 instructors will teach won't pay a dollar. Cameron Academy runs free seats for people getting back into the workforce after a hard stretch, including survivors of domestic violence and people rebuilding after incarceration, and it teaches Florida 15-to-17-year-olds at no charge.

"I've never once regretted giving a seat away," Sidawi said. "The math on that has always worked out, just not in a way an accountant would recognize."

THE PART THAT KEEPS HIM IN THE ROOM

"People find their way back years later, and it's never about the exam," he said. "They tell me they bought their mother a house. They tell me they got out of something. I don't know how many businesses get to hear that."

ABOUT CAMERON ACADEMY OF REAL ESTATE

Cameron Academy of Real Estate runs the largest real estate campus network in Florida, is the oldest independently owned real estate school in the state, and has been family owned and operated since Linda Cameron founded the school in 2003. It has been licensed by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation as a real estate school under permit ZH1002075 since June 9 of that year, stayed open through the 2008 housing crisis, and employs 35 people today. Her son, Michael Cameron Sidawi, helped run the school from the start and became its owner and director in January 2013. He holds its state permit, is a licensed Florida real estate broker (BK3198873) with an active Florida real estate instructor license (ZH1002785), and still teaches his own classes. Linda Cameron remains with the school as its instructor coordinator. Cameron Academy has taught more than 100,000 students across a catalog of 800-plus licensing and continuing education courses, offered in all fifty states through its partner network, and holds a 5-star average across more than 3,000 reviews on various platforms, such as Google, Yelp, and others; more than 150 student testimonials have been filmed in its classrooms and published. It was among the first schools in the country to put real estate testing on computers, shipped the first mobile exam-prep app for real estate students in the United States, and ran livestreamed classes in Florida years before remote learning became standard. Its educators built the school's mnemonic teaching method of song, rhythm, phrasing and story, since adopted into the industry's leading course materials, and created the first Spanish-language version of the Florida real estate pre-license course; Linda Cameron is credited as an editor of earlier editions of Dearborn's "Florida Real Estate Principles, Practices and Law." It teaches from 15 Florida campuses spanning roughly 380 miles from Key Largo to Palm Coast, in strategic partnership with leading brokerages, real estate law firms and title agencies, and hired 18 instructors statewide this year. The school provides its coursework free of charge to Florida students aged 15 to 17, and runs no-cost seats for people re-entering the workforce, including survivors of domestic violence and people rebuilding after incarceration. Cameron Academy is a registered trademark of Cameron Academy LLC, USPTO Reg. 5610857, in continuous use since June 9, 2003. The school turned down an acquisition approach from a national education company and is not for sale. It's growing through strategic partnerships and welcomes conversations with brokerages, title agencies and law firms in new markets, in Florida and beyond. Main office: 7009 Dr. Phillips Blvd., Suite 110A, Orlando, FL 32819. Telephone (407) 251-0051. Web: cameronacademy.com

Michael Cameron Sidawi
Cameron Academy of Real Estate
407 251 0051
info@cameronacademy.com
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