How are issues of teacher retention impacting students and schools in South Carolina?

What are educators and public education advocates doing to increase retention in the profession?

What impact are those strategies having on teacher retention?

Like many other states across the country, South Carolina had an increasing number of teachers leaving the profession – until this past year. According to the 2019-2020 South Carolina Annual Educator Supply and Demand Report, released by the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement (CERRA), this school year 6,650 teachers did not return to a teaching position in the same district that they were in during the 2018 – 2019 school year, a 9% decrease. While schools and districts filled most of those vacancies, there were still 555.5 vacant positions at the start of the ’19-’20 school year. That number of vacancies represents an 11% decrease from the prior year that, while promising, means that thousands of South Carolina’s children started school without a certified teacher. 

The good news is that SC-TEACHER was created to study the issue of retention (in addition to recruitment and preparation) so that practitioners and policymakers can make strategic decisions based on more sophisticated data and analyses. 

Over the next several weeks, blogs featured in this roundtable will set the stage for urgent action, then share current efforts taking place to address the issue of teacher retention. 

Please join the conversation and share your thoughts and experiences by commenting on these blog posts and inviting your colleagues to join the discussion on social media with @SCTEACHERTweets. Follow SC-TEACHER on Twitter to see when each new blog is posted. 

 

Featured February 18, 2020:

The House is On Fire by Patrick Kelly, Coordinator of Professional Learning in Richland School District 2 (On Twitter: @plkelly27)

 

Featured February 25, 2020:

CarolinaTIP: A Promising Solution to the Teacher Shortage By Nicole Skeen, University Induction Coordinator | UofSC College of Education @eneskeen

 

Featured March 3, 2020:

Policy Discussion on Preparation, Recruitment and Retention of Teachers by Melanie Barton, Executive Director – South Carolina Education Oversight Committee

 

Featured March 19, 2020:

Let’s Talk About That: Teacher Retention by Cindy Van Buren, Assistant Dean for Professional Partnerships, University of South Carolina, @Cindy_Van_Buren