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Teacher Turnover Rate Increases in Burlington, N.C.-Area Schools

Posted on: Monday, 17 October 2005, 18:00 CDT

By Mike Wilder, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.

Oct. 16--Teacher turnover in the Alamance-Burlington School System has fluctuated in recent years.

The most recent figures aren't good news for a system that has listed attracting and keeping good teachers as a top goal.

The system lost 19.71 percent of its teachers in 2004-05, said Barbara Everett, the system's director of personnel management.

That was up from 16.57 percent in 2003-04, and is the highest teacher turnover rate since the merger of the former Alamance County and Burlington school systems in 1996.

The turnover rate among teachers was 15.11 percent in 2002-03, 16.19 percent in 2001-02, 16.43 percent in 2000-01 and 18.13 percent in 1999-2000. The rate for teacher turnover statewide is significantly lower than the local rate.

But the turnover rate for North Carolina has also gone up.

Everett said the statewide rate was 12.95 percent in 2004-05 and was 12.37 percent in 2003-04.

Farrell Hanzaker, one of the local system's assistant superintendents, said the increase in turnover for 2004-05 is partly because of more teachers retiring from education.

Everett said 34 teachers retired with full benefits last school year, compared with 12 in 2003-04.

Many of the system's veteran teachers have reached, or will soon reach, the 30-year mark that allows them to retire with all of their benefits.

A combination of age and experience also allows teacher to retire with full benefits.

A lot of the non-veterans are new to teaching. Everett said figures in August showed about 120 out of not quite 1,478 teachers in the system were new to the profession.

The system's leaders have long been concerned about losing teachers to nearby systems that pay a higher local supplement to the state salary. School board members and administrators said the system took a step in the right direction this year. The county's commissioners and school board members agreed to a funding plan that increases the local supplement from 5 to 6 percent of the state salary.

Everett said the system currently has 16 unfilled teaching positions, mainly at high schools and middle schools.

In some cases, the system gets retirees to return temporarily when there are vacancies.

Another way to handle the unfilled positions, Everett said, is to have teachers cover the class during what would otherwise be a planning period.

During a school board meeting last week, Tom Manning, the board's chairman, mentioned legislation that would have eased the way for some teachers from other states to work in North Carolina.

The bill, vetoed by Gov. Mike Easley, would have allowed teachers classified as highly qualified in other states to teach in North Carolina without going through the state's certification process.

Manning criticized House Speaker Jim Black for blocking an override of Easley's veto. He also said local school systems are capable of making decision on what teachers to hire.

Everett said teachers from other states often teach in the Alamance-Burlington School System, though many times they leave after a few years to move closer to home.

Everett said some states in the Midwest, for example, don't have many teaching positions open in some areas because of dwindling populations. Sometimes educators who can't find full-time work there will come to North Carolina, she said.

Educators locally and statewide will almost certainly keep talking about the need for teachers.

"We have a teacher shortage, and it's probably going to get worse," Hanzaker said.

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Copyright (c) 2005, Times-News, Burlington, N.C.

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Source: Times-News

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