Turnover rates for teachers in Texas school districts rose by 7 percentage points from 2020-23, data from the Texas Education Agency shows.
“Teachers all over the state and the country are feeling overworked; in some cases, underappreciated; in a lot of cases, unheard and uncared for by those in power,” said Tricia Cave, a lobbyist for the Association of Texas Professional Educators and former Houston-area teacher.
School districts, including Alvin, Friendswood and Pearland ISDs, are also seeing an increase in uncertified teachers looking for jobs.
The overview
Experts and officials locally and across the state said there are several factors that may cause teachers to leave the profession.
Some include low pay, having to complete an abundant amount of tasks, paperwork and spending time working while at home, which all lead to burnout, Cave said.
For many teachers, these factors have made leaving the profession a reality. Alvin ISD saw its turnover rate, or the number of teachers who leave their respective districts each year, increase by nearly 12 percentage points from 2020-23. Texas saw its turnover rate increase by 7 percentage points from 2020-23, according to TEA data.
Friendswood and Pearland ISDs have also seen an increase in turnover rates, TEA data shows.
Diving in deeper
While turnover rates have increased, Alvin, Friendswood and Pearland ISD officials all note they’ve been able to maintain student-teacher ratios, even though these three districts are under the District of Innovation plan, meaning they are not bound by ratios provided by the state.
Ratios for AISD, FISD and PISD range from 18-22 students per teacher for kindergarten through fourth grade, and 19-30 students per teacher for fifth through twelfth grade, officials said.
However, Lindsey Foley, FISD’s executive director of human resources, said although class sizes have not increased, an allowance was made by the district to increase class size thresholds if needed due to budgetary constraints—not a lack of teachers available.
What they said
“Until kids physically walk in the door, I don’t know what this year is going to look like. The impact affecting class sizes, sometimes you don’t know until that first week of school," said Sundie Dahlkamp, human resource services and communications executive director for Pearland ISD.
“We have a long way to go just to keep up with the national average [for teacher pay]. We’re having a hard time in Texas not only keeping teachers but attracting them to the profession as well," said Bob Popinski, senior policy director, Raise Your Hand Texas, which is an education policy nonprofit.
What else?
Popinski said while retaining certified teachers has become a challenge for the state, he believes the main reason for teacher shortages right now is low pay.
He said a “driving force” to low pay for teachers is inflation increasing about 22% since 2019.
Texas has not raised student allotment funding for school districts, which is $6,160 per student, since 2019. That in part is causing budget shortfalls for several Texas school districts, including for FISD, which is looking at a possible $1.4 million shortfall for the 2024-25 fiscal year.
Money from the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, or ESSER, funding that Texas public schools received in 2020 and 2021 to address pandemic-related learning loss also expires in September.
“We are ranked ... at $400 [per year] below the national average in teacher pay,” Popinski said.
There has also now been a rise in uncertified teachers becoming employed in school districts, according to the TEA.
Locally, AISD has had the highest increase in hiring uncertified teachers, with percentages climbing nearly 25 percentage points from 2020-23, data from the TEA shows.
While PISD in recent years has had a lower percentage of newly hired uncertified teachers, Dahlkamp said many uncertified teachers are still applying to work for the district.
“We get lots of applications, and lots of people want to be teachers, but finding a qualified applicant that meets the criteria of maybe even a long-term sub is more difficult than it used to be,” Dahlkamp said.
What's next
Several institutions and organizations are looking to help bring more teachers into the profession.
San Jacinto College in Pasadena launched in spring 2024 its second bachelor’s degree with an emphasis in early childhood education, college officials said.
Meanwhile, education advocates are hoping the next state legislative session, which begins Jan. 14, includes passing solutions recommended in the Teacher Vacancy Task Force, which was created in 2022.
The task force is composed of teachers and school system leaders in public education across Texas. It proposed eight solutions for the Texas Legislature to consider in 2023 that revolved around increasing compensation, providing more support and training for new teachers, and helping teachers balance their time. Just one of the solutions passed during the 2023 session.
Public education advocates such as Cave and Popinski said they believe passing the task force’s recommendations could help lessen the state’s teacher shortage.
“Resources are not being allocated fairly to districts to help them with mitigating the shortage,” Cave said. “I wish that we would treat our teachers like the professionals that they are, and trust their word and allow them to do the good work that they do.”
Correction: This story has been updated to include percentage points in a few areas citing data, rather than representing the numbers as a percentage increase. The newest version also clarifies that FISD's class size threshold was increased and not the classes themselves.
