Addressing the Teacher Exodus

March has always been the month when educators contemplate what next? Stay in this school or position? Or request a change? Or get out? But in recent years, there’s been an exodus of teachers from schools. Here are the numbers: 

• Between February 2020 to May 2022, around 300,000 public school teachers and staff left the education field (from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). 
• At the beginning of 2022, 44% of public schools posted full or part-time teaching vacancies due to unforeseen resignations. Nearly half of all public schools in the U.S. were trying to hire teachers and were short-staffed (from the National Center for Education Statistics).
• In 2022, there were 567,000 fewer educators in public schools than there were before the pandemic (the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).

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This trend is daunting, but we can do something about it. 

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Although the top issue for teachers is salary, that is followed by a host of other issues, including working conditions, stress and burnout, and being in toxic school cultures. Coaches and leaders can influence those circumstances. And we can do so by starting with the kinds of conversations we engage teachers in. We can have conversations in which teachers tap into their agency, in which they process the feelings that arise in this profession, and in which they identify creative ways to navigate the challenges of teaching. We can have conversations that build teachers’ capacity to problem-solve, to tap into their inner resources, and to find joy in their work.  

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‍Want to learn how to have these conversations? Join us in an upcoming The Art of Coaching workshop. You’ll grow a skillset that can help create the conditions in which educators thrive. There’s no time to waste.