Teacher recruitment and retention is an issue that nearly every district has been forced to address for what seems like an eternity. Since the height of the pandemic, educators have been held responsible for taking on duties that simply aren’t part of the job description, such as mental health counseling, becoming a public health official overnight and juggling the wants and wishes of politically motivated parents. For some, it’s become a job that’s not worth the pay.
Turnover in the field has only gotten worse, and districts’ struggles to find qualified teachers reflect that. And now, so do school board documents.
Each week, Burbio, a data service company, tracks different trends in the K12 education sphere. This week, they’re diving into subjects—like staffing and terminations—that are being discussed at school board meetings. According to their deep dive, “staffing shortage” was the least-mentioned term according to a survey of more than 400 school district meetings. The districts represented in the data cover nearly 25% of the U.S. student population.
What may not be surprising is that “retirement” was the number one most mentioned term. Here’s a look at the prevalence of transition and recruitment terms found in school board documents from each district’s most recent meeting:
They also analyzed the frequency of training and development initiatives being addressed in meetings. Here’s what they found:
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