ROCK HILL, S.C. — Nationwide, teachers are walking away from classrooms and not enough people are interested in filling the openings they leave behind. This is creating a crisis for districts across the country. South Carolina is launching a Teacher Recruitment and Retention Taskforce to seek solutions to the problem before it gets worse.
The new task force is supposed to give recommendations by the end of this school year that will help keep teachers from leaving the field and encourage college students to apply to education programs. It comes at a time when experts say the teacher shortage is severe.
“The situation and the need for teachers is severe, and it’s only going to get worse in the next several years if we don’t have individuals to pursue teacher education,” said Beth Costner, Dean of Winthrop University’s College of Education.
Costner worries about the numbers. According to data from the Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement (CERRA), South Carolina classrooms lose between 5,000 to 7,000 teachers each year because they’re retiring or leaving for other reasons, while only about 2,000 new teachers are graduating from the state’s teaching programs every year.
Winthrop is participating in a new state program called TeachSC, created to recruit people to the education field by offering resources and scholarships, and guiding them until they become certified.
“It is a national problem and I appreciate that the state of South Carolina is really tackling this face-on, but we do need to make changes and we need to make them quickly,” Costner said.
Another concerning number: the National Education Association said earlier this year that 55% of teachers said they plan to leave the profession sooner rather than later because of the pandemic.
South Carolina leaders hope the Teacher Recruitment and Retention Task Force will provide recommendations to state leaders on everything from teacher pay to improving working conditions for teachers.
Local school districts, including Rock Hill, are already looking to benefit from these programs.
“I think that any effort that the state can make is appreciated on our end,” Lindsay Machak with Rock Hill Schools said. “It’s been a heavy lift over the last year to make sure that we are staffed and ready to go for the first day of school, so looking at some of those issues like retention and recruitment at the state level will definitely support the school districts locally.”
The task force has to have those recommendations in by May 31, 2023.
Contact Indira Eskieva at ieskieva@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.