Fewer SC teachers left their jobs this year, but workforce concerns remain
Fewer S.C. public school teachers decided not to return to their classrooms in August than in the year before, giving education advocates hope that an alarming trend of educators fleeing the profession can be reversed.
However, concerns remain about the overall size of the teacher workforce and a high number of vacancies that still dog school districts, according to a new report.
According to the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement’s annual supply and demand report on the state’s teacher workforce, more than 6,600 teachers left South Carolina public schools after the 2018-19 school year. The decline was about 9% from the previous school year’s 7,300 departures, which were driven by a larger number of teachers retiring than usual.
The number of teachers who left their positions at the start of this school year also was down slightly from two years prior, when 6,705 teachers did not return to their positions.
“We’re moving in the positive direction, but we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Todd Scholl, a CERRA spokesman. “Let’s continue to do the work we need to do to bring in outstanding teachers, because our kids deserve it.”
Public schools in the state reported 555 vacant teaching positions or about 1% of the roughly 53,000 teaching positions in the state at the beginning of this school year, which was an 11% decrease than last school year. The highest amount of vacancies were in hard-to-fill special education positions.
The annual report comes as state legislators debate how best to improve the state’s public schools and as teachers call for better pay, less testing and fewer mandates they say take away from classroom instruction.
The state House passed a bill earlier this year, and the full state Senate is expected to debate its own education bill in January. Meanwhile, Gov. Henry McMaster has called for a $3,000 across the board pay raise for K-12 teachers next school year.
Scholl said even though the state should celebrate the decreasing number of teachers leaving, there still needs to be investment in recruitment of young people into the profession and retention efforts of veteran teachers.
“We still have a recruitment and retention issue in South Carolina,” Scholl said. “While we did see the numbers move in a positive direction, we don’t want to become complacent and assume that trajectory will continue on.”
The decrease in the number of retiring teachers also contributed to the overall lower number of teachers who did not return to their classrooms this year over last year.
At the end of the 2018-19 school year, 1,190 of the 6,650 who left their positions were retirees. At the end of the 2017-18 school year there were more than 1,900 teachers who retired.
Scholl said last year there was an abnormally high number of teachers who retired because the Teacher and Employee Retention Incentive program ended. The program allowed retired teachers to come back and teach while accruing retirement benefits and collecting a teaching salary.
Why teachers are leaving
A number that continues to concern education advocates is the almost 5,000 former teachers who left their jobs and did not go to another S.C. K-12 public school or classroom and the state may not have the full picture as to why they leave.
Scholl said those who are unsatisfied with their job or the workplace may be under reported.
When teachers fill out exit surveys, they may not be want to say, they are leaving because “I wasn’t getting support from my administrator, or I was too stressed out,” Scholl said.
He added teachers may be afraid to “burn a bridge” in case they want to get back into the job.
Also according to the report, 28% of first-year teachers in 2018-19 did not return to the same position this school year. Though down from 34% the year prior, the percentage of teachers leaving in their first year remains high and concerning, the report said.
Scholl said CERRA believes the revamped mentoring program in the state is having a positive effect on teacher retention.
There still is concern from those in the teaching profession, even though there were some positives in the report.
“I’m still concerned we have vacancies in our schools,” Kathy Maness, the executive director of the Palmetto Teachers Association. “That means children have larger class sizes. They’re not being able to take all the courses they may want to take. It is a strain on our school district.”
She said she is encouraged by the proposed pay increases for teachers, including the $3,000 pay bump proposed by McMaster. However, there’s more that needs to be done to encourage people to stay in teaching.
“We’ve got to do less paperwork, something has to be done about discipline, teaching needs to be a profession that people want to go into,” Maness said. “We’ve got to uplift our profession.”
More teachers in the pipeline
State Superintendent of Education Molly Spearman, a Republican from Saluda, said she was encouraged by the latest CERRA report.
“South Carolina’s significant investment and continued commitment to raising teacher salary, eliminating high stakes tests, and bolstering safety and mental health resources is paying off,” Spearman said.
Spearman also noted the increase, albeit small, in number of students studying to become teachers. According to the report, 79 more college students in South Carolina graduated with bachelors degrees and teacher certifications in 2019 than the year before, which represents a 4.7% increase.
“The decline in the number of teachers leaving the profession, fewer vacancies, and the first annual increase in graduates from teacher preparation programs in six years is great news for students, parents, and school communities and underscores how important education reform efforts are to the future of our state,” Spearman said in a statement.
The number of students graduating with teaching degrees had been declining for many years.
“While this is not a substantial jump, it hopefully will be the start of a positive trend,” the report said. “Because so many teachers leave the classroom each year, it is critical that the pipeline of education majors stay adequately populated.”
Teacher retirements
Here is the number of teachers in South Carolina who retired at the end of recent school years.
2018-19 - 1,190
2017-18 - 1,937
2016-17 - 1,339
2015-16 - 1,187
