Beaufort Co. teacher turnover declines, still higher than SC average, state report shows
The number of teachers leaving Beaufort County School District hit a three-year low last year — but they’re still leaving at a higher rate than the rest of the state’s teachers, according to a report released last week.
Of the 1,727 teaching positions the district budgeted for 2018-19, 264 teachers — a little over 15 percent — did not return for this school year, according to the district’s annual HR report. 230 resigned, 29 retired, three were terminated and two did not have a reason listed for their departure.
Statewide, 6,650 teachers left their jobs during 2018-19, about 12.5 percent of the 52,600 teaching positions that were budgeted in South Carolina, according to Winthrop University’s Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement.
The center’s 2019 Educator Supply and Demand Report, released Dec. 11, says that Beaufort County’s above-average turnover is typical for the region.
“Districts located in two regions, the Lowcountry and the Pee Dee areas, employ roughly one-third of South Carolina’s public school teaching population,” the report reads. “Yet half of the vacancies stem from schools found in these particular areas.”
This is the first time the district’s teacher retention rate has increased since 2014-15, a year before then-superintendent Jeff Moss introduced a cost-of-living stipend to provide district employees with a bonus to cover Beaufort County’s high cost of living.
While the stipend has increased from $1,000 in 2015-16 to $5,000 in 2019-20, the district’s turnover rate continued to increase until this school year, and still hasn’t returned to the 2015-16 rate, when just under 14 percent of teachers left the district during or after the 2014-15 school year.
The district introduced three options to raise teacher pay to the board of education’s operations committee earlier this month, which could supplement their income by up to $6,000.
The options were released a day after South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster proposed a flat $3,000 raise for every teacher in the state.