CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Growing up, Judy Beckford had her sights set on a career as a doctor.
“I did one semester, and I said, 'This isn’t for me,'" Beckford told WCNC Charlotte's Nick Sturdivant. "So, I had to pivot quickly."
However, Beckford's passion for helping people didn’t fade as she was pivoting in her professional life.
“Teaching, summers off, don’t have to work weekends - It was the best option for me. I get to help kids,” Beckford explained.
In 2006, she started working as a teacher within the Charlotte Mecklenburg School District. However, as the years went on, her passion for teaching would fade.
“I was stressed," Beckford said. “You were expected to work late or work on the weekends. On top of that, I always had a part-time [job]. I would pick up packages and deliver them [with] DoorDash."
Between being a mom and trying to make ends meet, Beckford said she had a lot on her plate.
The stress kept piling up and came to a head in 2021. In the middle of the school year, while teaching at A.C.E. Academy Charter, she decided to quit teaching.
For Beckford and many other educators, teaching during the coronavirus pandemic was the breaking point.
“I woke up one day and said, 'This is it.' I went to public schools. I went to a charter school,” she said. “I was trying so many things to stay because this is what I wanted to do. This is what I went to school for. This is my life. This is my passion, but I just couldn’t do it.”
Beckford is just one of many teachers to leave the classroom over the last several years.
“This year, we did see an increase in the attrition rate," Thomas Tomberlin with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI), said. "Of course, when we see those increases, that makes the news."
The 2022-2033 NCDPI State of the Teaching Profession report, which is mandated by the NC General Assembly, showed that between March 2022 and March 2023, more than 10,000 teachers left North Carolina classrooms.
As the Senior Director of Educator Preparation and Licensure for NCDPI, Tomberlin presented this report to the NC State Board of Education.
The report also shows that attrition was up by 11.5% for the 2022-2023 school year.
Tomberlin said beginning teachers are leaving at an even higher rate.
“First-year teacher attrition was abnormally high in the state. It could be a lack of support. It could be the job was not what they imagined it would be,” she shared.
Beckford thinks the barrier to entry doesn’t match the pay.
“Teachers look at other professions that don’t require as much and they make way more,” she stated.
Tomberlin also pointed out that the state’s teacher attrition rate remains below the national average of around 12%.
Bryan Proffitt, Vice President of the North Carolina Association of Educators, described the state of teaching as bleak.
“I became a teacher in 2004, and I couldn’t get a job in NC because people wanted to teach," Proffitt said. "I was still working for a moving company three weeks into the school year. Here we are 20 years later, and we’ve seen a massive depression in wages."
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According to Proffitt, North Carolina is 38th in the country in teacher pay and $13,000 below the national average.
“We’ve seen what feels like an attack on the profession in terms of policy and economic and budget decisions for 10 to 15 years, but what we’ve seen post-COVID is this really brutal attack on the profession in terms of our character,” he said.
So, what’s next?
As lawmakers look through the report, Tomberlin said the state board of education is interested in ramping up its beginning teacher support program.
“Can we connect the needs of the beginning teacher with the veteran, highly effective teachers in our state? The answer is yes, and we probably should,” he said.
Since leaving the classroom, Beckford has embarked on a new career in marketing for a company that provides support for educators.
“I have the teacher guilt leaving, but I had to think about my mental health,” she shared.
She still has her sights set on helping. She’s also partnering to start Spark Hub, an organization that provides education curriculum for schools and daycares.
While her journey as a teacher led her to where she is now, Beckford said she regrets going into the profession.
“I enjoyed all the experiences I had - but looking at how hard I had to work, where I always had to have a second job ... I feel like I missed out on a lot on my daughter growing up."
Recently, the State Board of Education made a recommendation to remove the test requirement in hopes of more people entering the teaching profession.
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