RALEIGH, N.C. — Amid the statewide and national trend of teachers leaving their jobs, the annual State of the Teaching Profession in North Carolina report shows an increase in teacher attrition rates.
The rate for 2022-2023 is 11.45%, nearly 4% higher than the year before and almost 3.25% higher than the 2020-2021 analysis. The report highlights many reasons why teachers are leaving the profession, including family responsibilities, continuing education, family relocation, dissatisfied with teaching and a career change.
Looking at school districts in North Carolina, Cumberland County Schools had one of the higher attrition rates.
Ruben Reyes, Cumberland County Schools’ associate superintendent of human resources, said the attrition rates reflect the climate in education currently. He said prior to the pandemic, their district had some of the lowest rates of attrition in Cumberland County than they have ever had, but once the pandemic came into play, they saw a lot of people leaving the field of education.
He said in Cumberland County Schools it’s been hard to recruit teachers working with students with disabilities and math teachers. Reyes also explains that the report reflects that often, beginning teachers that are in education from alternative backgrounds tend to have a higher attrition rate. He said for non-traditional teachers to fully transition into teaching, they need to take classes on how to teach their subject, and this all happens while they are teaching at the same time. Reyes said he’s hearing from this group of teachers that this can be overwhelming.
Another big factor that is affecting teacher attrition rates is compensation.
“Compensation is also a big factor. Beginning teachers coming into the field is starting out at $39,000 a year. We do have a local supplement but some of the things that we are trying to do to recruit new teachers, we are providing signing bonuses,” Reyes said.
The state provides base funding for teachers, but most counties across the state also give what is known as a supplement, added money to attract teachers to their districts. This includes Cumberland County.
Like Reyes, Steven Barbour, the 2024 Cumberland County Teacher of the Year, has thoughts about teacher compensation. He said he feels it’s nowhere near where it should be.
“Teacher attrition rates are a defective form of salary negotiation. If you read the report, a lot of the areas of high attrition rates have increasing property values and in a state where we have no collective bargaining abilities and do I dare say effective representation in salary negotiations, this is the one measure by which outsiders can view are teachers being paid enough,” Barbour said.
Barbour, a high school world history teacher, said teachers need market-based salaries; if not, we are going to lose more and more teachers. For example, he said a former student of his is leaving the field because he has an opportunity to double his salary.
“He’s leaving the profession this year, and it’s because he looked out in the horizon and saw a stagnating wage and he’s not going to make any more money over the next 10 years,” Barbour said.
While this may be the case for some teachers, Barbour has no plans of ending his teacher career. He’s been teaching for 23 years, and it’s something that’s in his DNA.
“I come from a family of educators. My father was a principal, my mom is a retired community college professor, my grandfather, my aunt, my uncle, it’s the family business,” Barbour said.
Data highlighted in the annual State of the Teaching Profession report shows that of the more than 90,000 teachers employed during 2022-23 school year, over 10,000 teachers were reported as attrition, meaning they no longer are teaching in a state’s public school or public charter schools.
Reyes said the district is trying to focus on retention of teachers, adding that retention is the new recruitment.
“What we find is that you don’t have a lot of teachers entering the field anymore. When you look at education programs around the state, there’s a significant decrease and some of the numbers,” Reyes said.
They are also focusing on support for their teachers.
“They want an environment where the district is supporting them and understanding the craft, providing mentorship and resources, and we have tried to put resources in that particular area,” Reyes said.
North Carolina is heading into the second year of a two-year budget cycle. The budget in place has raises for all teachers, but they are higher for new teachers than those with tenure. Some education leaders said they hope the General Assembly focuses on bigger raises for all teachers during this short session we are in now.