Years after COVID shutdowns, Fort Worth teachers continue to hit the exits. Here’s why

On the first day of school in 2023, the biggest change Jennifer Scott noticed was the quiet.

Over the summer, her two teenagers had provided a steady stream of background noise at home, she said. So when they went back to school, she had the house to herself.

It was the quietest work environment Scott had had in years. After teaching English for four years at Grapevine High School in the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District, Scott had switched to a career as an editor for a consulting firm just months before. The transition from teaching in a high school to working from home wasn’t a difficult one, she said, but it did take some getting used to.

“It was hard for me to adjust — to function in a work environment where it wasn’t constantly like hair on fire,” she said.

Scott, of Colleyville, isn’t alone. Across the Fort Worth area and nationwide, a growing number of educators are leaving the profession, citing job stress, a lack of time for a life outside of work and behavior issues in the classroom.

Last year, a statewide task force of Texas teachers and school administrators offered recommendations for keeping more educators in the classroom. But a lack of action on those ideas over the past year left many educators feeling frustrated.

Texas teacher turnover rate ticks up

The statewide teacher turnover rate for the 2022-23 school year stood at an all-time high of 21.3%, according to state figures gathered by the United Educators Association, which represents teachers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. That means that about one out of five teachers who worked in Texas schools during the 2022-23 school year didn’t return last fall. That figure represents a 4.5 percentage point uptick from the previous year.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area, all but six school districts saw upticks in their teacher turnover rates, state figures show. In three districts — Ponder, Duncanville and DeSoto — more than one in three teachers left after the 2022-23 school year.

Last month, Texas AFT, a statewide teachers union, released survey data showing that about three-quarters of educators across the state reported experiencing burnout over the past 12 months, and about 69% said they were considering leaving the profession. Those figures are based on survey responses from 3,274 teachers across the state.

Scott said her decision to leave the classroom mostly has to do with job stress. There was always pressure to get students ready to take state tests, she said. She got along well enough with her coworkers and building administrators, she said, but that didn’t make up for the fact that teaching is a hard job. Teachers have to work with students on the content they’re supposed to be learning, while also trying to attend to their other needs. At the same time, they also have to deal with paperwork and logistical issues that come with the job.

Then, at the end of a long day of teaching, teachers usually have to take work home with them, she said. Eventually, it all left her exhausted and burned out.

“I would go teach all day and then come home and work for a few more hours, either grading papers or getting things ready for the next day,” she said. “And it was just too much for me.”

In February 2023, the Governor’s Teacher Vacancy Task Force, a panel of teachers and administrators from across Texas, released a 39-page report outlining recommendations for keeping more educators from leaving the classroom, and attracting new ones into the profession to replace those who do leave. Among the key recommendations were raising teacher pay, creating incentives for new educators to join the workforce and improving teachers’ working conditions.

After the report was released, Gov. Greg Abbott pledged to work with lawmakers to act on those recommendations to develop strategies to attract and retain high-quality teachers. But in the year that followed, few of the recommendations became reality. Proposals to send more money to districts for teacher pay raises were tangled up in a larger debate over school vouchers. The state’s minimum salary for teachers remains at $33,660.

Texas teachers union chief says salary isn’t only issue

Steven Poole, executive director of UEA, said there’s been a shift not only in how many teachers are leaving their districts, but also in what they’re doing next. In years past, a large percentage of the teachers who left their jobs did so to take teaching jobs in other districts, he said. Now, he said, a growing number of them are leaving the profession entirely.

Poole said most of the teachers he sees resigning have five years of experience or less, although he said there’s also been growth in the number of older teachers opting to retire.

There are a number of factors driving teachers out of the classroom in larger numbers, Poole said. He noted that Arlington and Fort Worth ISDs, two of the highest-paying districts in the area, had turnover rates close to the state average. That’s a sign that the issues go beyond teacher pay alone, he said. Districts also need to look at how they can improve working conditions, he said.

In many cases, that means rethinking how they handle student discipline, Poole said. School districts across the country reported a noticeable increase in student behavior issues after schools reopened following the pandemic. Students need more support, Poole said, but that support costs money. He noted that many districts are being forced to make cuts after lawmakers failed to reach a deal to send more money to schools.

Poole said the shift away from out-of-school suspensions in some districts also creates a more difficult work environment for teachers. Two years ago, Fort Worth ISD began experimenting with a model to reduce suspensions for low-level offenses like using profanity and instead to send students to so-called reset centers to work through whatever issues caused them to act out.

Poole said he understands the reluctance to remove students from the classroom during instructional time. But if teachers can’t remove students who are causing problems, it forces them to deal with them during class, while they’re supposed to be teaching, he said. That creates more job stress for teachers and disrupts instruction for the rest of the class, he said.

“Teachers are fed up,” he said. “They’re overworked, and a lot of times they’re being demonized in politics. So it’s easy for them to make a decision to walk away.”

Teacher career change consultant expects exodus to continue

Lisa Harding has a front-row seat to the evolving teacher vacancy crisis. Harding is the founder of Teacher Career Transition Academy, a Florida-based company that helps teachers navigate the transition out of the classroom. Most of the teachers who come to her say they’re looking to leave either because of a lack of support from their administration or added work responsibilities that they don’t have enough time in the day to handle. Those problems tend to compound on other issues like student behavior, she said.

“Students have bad behavior, the administration is not giving teachers support to actually address the behavior issues, and the parents are just making it worse,” she said. “So it’s kind of like the perfect storm.”

Harding tries not to steer teachers toward any particular career path, but instead helps them see how their skills can translate to other lines of work. Many teachers end up doing corporate training or stepping into customer success roles, she said. Other former teachers have ended up working as data analysts in large national banks, she said.

Harding said she expects the number of teachers leaving the classroom to continue to grow. There’s an issue of momentum, she said — as more teachers see their former coworkers get good jobs outside of education, they realize it could be an option for them, as well.

FWISD opens employee retention office

Fort Worth ISD’s teacher turnover rate stood at 20.8% last year, slightly below the state average. But turnover was considerably higher at some individual campuses. At Harlean Beal Elementary School in Forest Hill, the turnover rate more than doubled last year, climbing from 42% in the 2021-22 school year to 88% in 2022-23, according to district figures obtained by UEA and shared with the Star-Telegram last December.

At the time, district officials acknowledged the challenges at Harlean Beal and said the district was trying to improve teacher retention through targeted support and professional development. A Fort Worth ISD spokesman also said the district had established an office of teacher retention and employee engagement, which is designed to give teachers and other staff a venue to voice their concerns.

Woodrow Bailey, Fort Worth ISD’s chief talent officer, said last week that the staff members working in that office are beginning to send out surveys and questionnaires to teachers and other employees to get an idea of what the district needs to work on. District leaders have also redesigned the resignation process to collect more information from departing teachers and staff about why they’re leaving, he said.

The office is only a few months old, Bailey said, so it hasn’t yet collected enough data to offer much insight about what’s leading teachers to resign. But as more resignations come in over the coming months, district leaders should be able to develop a clearer picture, he said.

The district is also looking at other ways of retaining teachers, Bailey said. As administrators develop a budget over the coming months, they’ll do so with competitive teacher and staff pay and benefits in mind, he said.

But Bailey acknowledged that efforts to retain teachers need to go beyond pay. District leaders are also reminding campus principals to make sure teachers and support staff feel valued and like their voices are heard. Last week, Bailey’s office sent a note to campus leaders reminding them to identify the top performing teachers in their buildings and make sure they feel valued. That could be as simple as sending them a note thanking them for their hard work and letting them know they’re making a difference with students, he said.

“Recognition is something that really doesn’t cost a whole lot,” he said.

‘It’s like night and day’

Scott, the former Grapevine High School teacher, said her decision to leave the classroom didn’t come entirely without pangs of regret. Her students were high school juniors, and she was sad that she couldn’t be there to see them finish out their high school years.

But Scott said the move ended up being better for her quality of life. Her current job is mostly project-based, which allows her to set her own hours. She also works part time for a university, teaching online courses as an adjunct professor. That job allows her to keep a hand in teaching, which she still loves, and her flexible work schedule allows her to schedule student meetings during down time, she said.

Although she’s happy with the change, Scott said she still occasionally misses working with students in person. But she doesn’t miss having to live her life around a bell schedule or bringing stacks of assignments home for grading after a long day at school.

“It’s like night and day,” she said. “...I have more time just to have a life outside of my job.”