Exit interviews show top 5 reasons why Charlotte-Mecklenburg teachers are leaving
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools has seen 2,100 teachers leave or retire since the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, although the state teacher workforce has remained largely stable through 2020-2021.
About 8.2% of North Carolina teachers were counted as leaving employment in the state’s public schools during the 2020-21 school year, according to a report presented in March to the State Board of Education. State Superintendent Catherine Truitt said the report tells a different story than the anecdotal one that suggested teachers were leaving their jobs in large numbers during the first year of the pandemic because of the many challenges they faced.
“To be sure, attrition from the state’s teacher corps remains a concern and a challenge that we must address more aggressively,” Truitt said when the report was released.
Christine Pejot, the chief human resources officer for CMS, told the Charlotte Observer in August there were “many influencers” for why the district has seen hundreds of teachers leave.
“The Great Resignation, COVID, and declining enrollment in colleges of education among them,” Pejot said. “Low pay compared to other professions despite increased pressures is also a factor that has undoubtedly weighed heavily on teacher morale and in turn decisions to enter or stay in the profession.”
Members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Association of Educators told the Observer last fall staffing shortages and lack of support for employees and students are leaving teachers “exhausted.”
CMS’ top five reasons for departures
The following are the top five reasons why teachers left CMS between July 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022, according to exit interviews:
▪ Career change
▪ Teach in other North Carolina local education agencies, which include charter schools
▪ Expiration of a teaching assignment (end-of-year position, greater than 6 months. These are positions funded for one school year.)
▪ Family relocation
▪ Family responsibilities/child care
Top reasons across the state
A variety of personal reasons accounted for most responses teachers statewide gave for decisions to leave, but the report presented in March also showed a sharp increase in the number and percentage of teachers giving non-specific or unknown reasons. For 2020-21, those two categories represented 25% of all exiting teacher responses, compared to 7.6% in 2019-20.
Top specific reasons are as follows:
▪ Career change
▪ Family relocation
▪ Teach in another state
National reasons for teacher departures
About 300,000 public school teachers and other staff have left the field between February 2020 and May 2022, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, a 3% drop since May 2020. More than half of educators are burned out and want to retire or leave the profession early, a National Education Association poll revealed in February.
Key stressors, teachers say, are pandemic-related. But unfilled job openings and student behavioral issues contribute to the exodus.
This story was originally published September 2, 2022 at 6:00 AM.
