South Carolina is now facing a crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, according to a new report by Rock Hill’s Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement (CERRA).
there were more than 1,600 unfilled teaching positions in South Carolina schools at the beginning of the fall term, representing a 9% increase in vacancies over the previous school year.
The report broke the vacancies down by subject area with Special Ed showing the highest vacancies overall.
“The subject areas with the largest percentages include special education (17.6% of all vacancies), early childhood education/elementary (13.6% of all vacancies), and mathematics (11.1% of all vacancies). These subject areas collectively represent about half of all teaching positions in the state with approximately a third of all FTE positions in early childhood education/elementary. Examining data from Table 2 and Figure 1, subject area vacancy rates ranged from 0% to 3.7% with a median of 1.5%. The subject areas with the highest vacancy rates include speech language (3.7%), art (2.9%), and world languages
(2.6%). Additional subject areas with vacancy rates greater than 2% include psychologist, librarian, special education, and literacy.”
In response, the South Carolina Department of Education is seeking substantial funding in the state budget to raise the minimum teacher salary to $45,500 annually.
The South Carolina school system has also put together a ‘Teacher Recruitment and Retention Task Force’, which has proposed a range of recommendations, including; launching a public campaign to enhance public respect for teachers, reevaluating state standards, and guaranteeing more teachers get daily break.
What do you think should be done to fix the crisis?
