ROCK HILL - The Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement (CERRA) recently released its South Carolina Annual Educator Supply and Demand Report for the 2017-18 school year. The report concluded that more public school teachers are leaving their classrooms, resulting in more vacancies and a need for more teachers to fill those vacancies. South Carolina’s colleges and universities also are producing fewer teachers. With more teachers leaving their positions each year and fewer entering the profession, teacher retention is an important consideration for the state.
 
CERRA also has released a study on the retention of National Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs). The state’s teacher turnover rates were compared to turnover rates of South Carolina NBCTs over a five-year period. The most recent data available are from the 2016-17 school year. Specifically, these data represent the rates of teachers who were teaching in a SC public school district in 2015-16, but not teaching in any SC public school district in 2016-17. The SC teacher turnover rate for the 2016-17 school year was 7.7%, yet only 1.9% for all NBCTs in the state.
 
National Board Certification (NBC) is a voluntary, advanced certification process for educators. At a minimum, teachers pay close to $2000 to undergo NBC. The process consists of four components, each designed to evaluate a different aspect of a teacher’s practice. Currently the state pays an annual supplement to new NBCTs for the five years of the national certificate. A proviso passed last legislative session effectively ends the supplement program for candidates who apply after July 1, 2018. This deadline leaves many SC educators unable to benefit from the program.
 
As part of the retention study, CERRA surveyed members of the SC National Board Network to gain anecdotal evidence related to the impact of NBC on teacher instruction and retention. Members, all of whom are NBCTs in the state, were asked if they believed that the NBC process affected their planning, instruction, and/or assessment practices. All survey respondents credited the process with enabling them to reflect on their practice and better assess the different needs of their students. Such reflection and differentiated instruction often have a positive impact on student learning and growth and can lead to an improvement in the teacher’s overall effectiveness. Teachers also reported that the supplement positively impacted their decision to stay in the classroom.
 
According to data released by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), South Carolina remains one of the nation’s leading states for the total number of NBCTs after 91 educators representing 24 school districts earned NBC in December 2017. In addition to these new NBCTs, 490 teachers renewed their certificates in 2017.

Teachers interested in applying for the NBC process can access further information on the CERRA website at nationalboardsc.com.

​The Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention, and Advancement (CERRA) has released its South Carolina Annual Educator Supply and Demand Report for the 2017-18 school year. As has been the trend in recent years, more public school teachers are leaving their positions, causing more vacancies and the need for more teachers to fill those vacancies. Approximately 6,700 teachers left their positions during or at the end of the 2016-17 school year. While more than one-quarter of these teachers reportedly went to teach in another SC public school district, about 4,900 teachers are no longer teaching in any SC public school.
 
Teachers leaving early in their careers is a challenge faced by many SC districts. Of the teachers who left during or at the end of the 2016-17 school year, excluding those who went to teach in another SC district, 35% had five or fewer years of experience and 12% had only one year or less of experience. A small improvement is revealed when these percentages are compared to those reported last year, which were 37% and 13%, respectively. One other notable finding relates to first-year teachers hired for the 2016-17 school year; 22% left their positions during or at the end of the 2016-17 school year and are no longer teaching in any SC public school district.
 
The study also concluded that districts are hiring fewer teachers from in-state teacher preparation programs. Since 2012-13, the number of hires coming from this particular source has declined by 25%. This trend can be explained by the multi-year decrease in SC students graduating with a Bachelor’s degree eligible for teacher certification. Because SC colleges and universities are not producing enough teachers to fill current vacancies, school districts are hiring more teachers from other states and countries and from alternative certification programs.
 
At the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, districts reported 550 vacant teaching positions in SC public school classrooms. This number represents a 16% increase compared to vacancies reported at the beginning of the 2016-17 school year. In addition to these vacancies are the 7,300 vacancies and new positions filled prior to the start of the 2017-18 school year.
 
Of the 28 SC school districts eligible to participate in the state’s Rural Recruitment Initiative during the 2016-17 school year, FY17 Proviso 1A.64, fourteen districts reported improved retention rates. Now in its second full year of implementation, the Initiative can be expected to produce even more positive results as the participating school districts continue their focused recruitment and retention efforts.
 
The South Carolina Annual Educator Supply and Demand Report can be accessed on the CERRA website at https://www.cerra.org/supply-and-demand.html.