Can Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools keep its teachers? Why this year may be different

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools may be at an inflection point — continuing along a slowly improving rate of keeping employees or watching as an untold number leave as federal money does, too.

The rate Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools teachers leave the district each year stayed firmly under 10% since 2016, according to a Charlotte Observer analysis. But now, teacher retention is more crucial as CMS tries to tackle multiple challenges at once: the loss of millions in federal dollars used, in part, to pay around 500 guest teachers, keeping turnover low and filling hundreds of job openings.

CMS is creating its budget for the next fiscal year, and board members as well as the superintendent say keeping employees around and recruiting new ones ranks as a top priority. School board members say they’re confident CMS can recruit and keep teachers even with federal money and pandemic pay boosts expiring. But teachers and CMS leadership say the state needs to increase teacher salaries, too.

“The state is not stepping up and supplying schools with the resources they need to really flourish,” said Justin Parmenter, a seventh grade English teacher who’s been with CMS since 2002. “We have counties that have had to step up and fill in because the state is not doing its job.”

The CMS board is expected to get its first look at the superintendent’s proposed budget at its regular meeting March 26.

What are the numbers?

About 8.52% of CMS teachers left their jobs in the 2021-2022 school year according to the most recent data from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. That’s a few points more than most local districts, but it’s about half of what CMS reported in 2014-15 and less than Union County Public Schools, the area’s second-largest district. It’s also about 700 of the nearly 9,000 teachers in CMS, according to the most recent data available.

In 2014, the district cut around 90 teaching assistant positions, based on the budget passed by the state legislature, contributing to a higher attrition rate compared with later years.

The state saw a turnover rate of 7.78% during the 2021-2022 school year. Like Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, districts across North Carolina have seen a drop in teacher turnover since 2014.

The rate is higher among teachers in their first three years, said Malcolm Butler, professor and dean of the Cato College of Education at UNC Charlotte.

Teacher turnover remains vastly higher than the average across all other industries, which came out around 2.4% midway through 2023, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Why do teachers leave?

Most teachers who leave Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools do so for “personal reasons,” data show. That includes a range of family and lifestyle changes as well as cost of living considerations.

“Probably the biggest reason is salary implications,” Butler said. “Teachers aren’t in the profession for the money, but it does factor into people’s decisions. As a highly educated, professional teacher in that situation, you start to think, ‘Why am I working so hard when I could be doing something else and making more or the same amount of money?’”

About 60% of the CMS teachers who left during the 2021-22 year left for personal reasons. Only nine of the more than 115 school districts in North Carolina had a higher percentage of teachers leaving for that reason, the Observer found.

In Wake County Schools, by comparison, the only district with more teachers than CMS, 48% of teachers who left reported doing so for personal reasons.

Teacher shortages

CMS’ board has used a portion of its COVID relief money in recent years to pay teachers retention and recruitment bonuses of up to $7,500. However, that funding is expiring Sept. 30, and the district is still finalizing a budget for this upcoming year.

With more than 450 certified teacher vacancies as of February, instructors who stay bear a heavier load.

“Burnout isn’t a problem in isolation. It’s very connected with overall school funding and vacancies,” said Parmenter. “It’s hard to meet the students’ needs with classes that are too large without teacher’s assistants, and it can weigh on you after a while as a teacher.”

Parmenter says struggles teachers face every day in the classroom deter young people from entering the profession. Between 2010 and 2020, spring enrollment in University of North Carolina System undergraduate education programs dropped by 44%. That means fewer newly minted teachers to fill open jobs.

Parmenter suspects much of that has to do with teachers being overworked and underpaid.

“If I’m a college student thinking about majoring in education, and I take a trip to the local elementary school, that’s what I’m going to see,” Parmenter said.

Teaching programs in North Carolina also require incoming students to pass an additional test, known as the Praxis Core. This isn’t required in many other states or for most other areas of study. Butler says the additional testing requirement could deter students from choosing to study education.

“For some students, that is a major challenge,” said Butler. He said there’s talk about eliminating the requirement to increase enrollment in NC teaching programs.

What could end of retention bonuses mean?

It’s not yet clear what affect the end of the federally funded bonuses will have on retention and recruitment. Parmenter says the bonuses were helpful, but they were always a Band-Aid on the growing problem of inadequate funding from the state.

“I think everything like that makes some difference. If you’re kind of in a desperate position to keep your teachers from leaving, I think people appreciate that extra income,” Parmenter said. “In the long-term, although those bonuses were very important, I also think that people want to see their salaries grow.”

All certified public school teachers in the state have to be paid according to the same salary schedule approved by the state legislature. Individual school districts can offer additional pay on top. While Charlotte has a higher cost of living than many other parts of the state, teachers are paid with the same base salary, so CMS is tasked with offering a high-enough supplement to give them a living wage in Mecklenburg County.

“Teachers will move outside of an urban setting because they can get more bang for their buck outside of that urban setting,” Butler said.

CMS offers a supplement of $7,302 to its lowest-paid teachers. So, the lowest-paid teachers in CMS this school year make approximately $46,302. Meanwhile, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator, a single adult with no children needs to make around $48,000 a year to have a living wage in Mecklenburg County. The average person needs to make a minimum of $62,110 in order to live “comfortably,” in the Charlotte area, according to a 2023 study from financial planning site SmartAsset.

Teachers make more based on years of experience. The median teacher salary in CMS this year is around $60,000, not including temporary guest teachers paid with expiring federal money.

There are slight, state-driven salary increases for teachers, an estimated 2.9%, coming as part of next year’s budget. That increase, however, remains below the current U.S. inflation rate.

CMS also aims to increase teacher supplements by an average of 5% in the next three or four years, partially by asking for more money in its budget request to Mecklenburg County commissioners this May, CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill told The Charlotte Observer. That increase alone will cost around $7.4 million.

“As long as I’m superintendent in CMS, I will always advocate for an increase in the teacher supplement unless the state does what it should do, which is increase teacher salaries” Hill told The Observer.

What do district leaders say?

The superintendent is slated to present a budget recommendation to the CMS Board of Education on March 26, and the board will vote whether to approve it on Apr. 23. Then, Mecklenburg County commissioners have the final say on any additional local money.

“Having a high-quality teacher in every classroom is the number one thing we can do to achieve our goals,” CMS Board Chair Stephanie Sneed said in a meeting with county commissioners last month. “That is directly related to how much we can pay them and create a working environment that they want to be in. That is directly related to the budget.”

Even with the expiration of federal COVID funds, CMS board members are optimistic, saying “there’s not a worry right now.”

“We knew this was coming anyway, so Dr. Hill and her staff have been putting together a plan that we feel comfortable with for retaining and recruiting teachers,” Vice Chair Dee Rankin said.

CMS Superintendent Crystal Hill also says teacher retention and recruitment is a central priority of the new strategic plan she will unveil this spring.