An increasing number of North Carolina teachers are leaving public schools

North Carolina public school teachers continued to leave the profession in increasing numbers last academic year, a new state report found.

Why it matters: Since the pandemic, teacher attrition and vacancies have spiked in North Carolina's public schools, often placing pressure on centers to fill positions and even prompting business groups to call for teacher raises .

Driving the news: The attrition rate of North Carolina teachers was 11% during the 2022-23 school year — up 3.7 percentage points from the previous school year, according to an annual report from the state's Board of Education.

• That equates to more than 10,300 of the state's public school teachers leaving school systems between March 2022 and March 2023.

Yes, but: North Carolina's attrition rate remains below the national rate.

Zoom in: Around 48% of N.C. teachers who left public schools during that period cited "personal reasons," according to the report.

• Career changes and retirement with full benefits were the largest reported individual reasons teachers left.
• Early-career teachers left at higher rates than experienced teachers.

What they're saying: Outgoing state Superintendent Catherine Truitt blamed the state's pay structure for the departure of some early-career teachers, noting pay bumps are based on years of service.

• The structures reward employees for doing the same job whether or not they're good at it, Truitt said at a Board of Education meeting last week.
• "This is not what appeals to the millennial generation or Gen Z where people do not want to stay in a job for 30 years to realize the economic benefit of that job," she added.

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