West Wake News

The North Carolina State Board of Education received the 2023-24 State of the Teaching Profession report, indicating improvements in teacher attrition rates for the current year. The report, mandated by the North Carolina General Assembly, tracks attrition and vacancies in the state's 115 public school districts from March 2023 to March 2024.

Key findings show a reduction in the attrition rate to 9.88% from 11.5% in the previous year. This equates to approximately 1,500 fewer teachers leaving from a pool of 89,972 employed teachers. Despite this improvement, attrition remains above the seven-year average rate of 8.64%, excluding the spike seen in 2022-23.

North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, Maurice “Mo” Green, acknowledged the progress but stressed the need to improve teacher retention. "While the report shows improvement in the percentage of teachers staying compared to prior years, there are still far too many teachers leaving the profession," Green said. He emphasized the importance of offering competitive salaries and career advancement opportunities within public schools to retain educators.

The superintendent and State Board of Education advocate for higher teacher salaries and a broader Advanced Teaching Roles Program, aiming to elevate teacher salaries to the highest in the southeastern United States.

Attrition disproportionately affects newer teachers and those nearing retirement. Rates ranged from 11.7% to 17.5% for those with 0-5 years of experience, and between 18.5% and 26.8% for veteran educators. Additionally, new teachers entering through alternative licensure methods account for nearly half of all new educators, despite a decline in numbers from last year. Since 2017-18, this pathway increased by 19.6%.

Dr. Tom Tomberlin, senior director of educator preparation, licensure, and performance at the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, highlighted the need for more support for teachers entering through alternative routes. "This middling conversion rate shows that we still have some work to do when it comes to supporting our alternatively prepared teachers," Tomberlin said.

The report also included vacancy data, showing an increase in the vacancy rate to 8.2% from 6.4% in the previous year, due to an expanded definition of vacancies. However, Tomberlin clarified that many classified vacancies are filled by temporarily licensed educators or rehired retirees. "If we’re just looking at unfilled positions and unresolved licenses, our vacancy rate would be much lower – approximately 1.9%," he explained.

Introducing principal movement data for the first time, the report detailed that at the end of the 2022-23 school year, 186 of 2,498 principals left their roles, resulting in a 7.45% attrition rate, with 65% retiring. Nonetheless, 92.4% of principals retained their positions from 2023 to 2024, with 4.9% advancing to district-level roles. More than two-thirds of principals in low-performing schools continued serving their respective schools.