BY CHISOM EMETU, Freshman
BLYTHEWOOD-- The South Carolina teacher shortage has drastically worsened over recent years. This detrimental shortage in South Carolina education has resulted in new understandings in why so many teachers are leaving the state or the profession and what changes or reforms need to be made to make South Carolina a more teacher friendly environment.
According to the South Carolina Radio Network, 6,500 teachers left South Carolina schools prior to the 2017-2018 academic year. The State projects approximately, 7,500 teachers are projected to leave prior to the 2018-2019 school year.
These numbers are unfortunate considering 209 teaching positions were left vacant at the start of the 2017 school year. In response to this crisis, unprepared, lower quality teachers are being hired, in low-income, minority, or rural areas.
Consequently, due the decline of quality teachers in these schools, educational opportunities are poor and test scores are declining.
“South Carolina also faltered on the percentage of students who met the college readiness benchmarks on the ACT exam. On the English ACT subject exam, for example, only 44 percent of S.C. students met the benchmark,” according to The (Charleston) Post and Courier.
Though there are infinite reasons teachers discontinue working at South Carolina schools, many teachers agree that the main causes are lack of support and low salaries.
“Because of the pay it’s substantially lower than anywhere in the US,” English teacher Erin Zehner said.
Several teachers agree that in order for South Carolina to attract more teachers, there has to be higher pay. The average salary for a South Carolina teacher is $48,375, which places South Carolina at 39th in the country, according to the South Carolina Education Association.
“There’s a lot of things that could be done. Let me see if I could give you a couple simple things that could immediately be done. I think that to attract teachers and more importantly to attract quality teachers, there has to be more pay. Like it comes down to the money,” said Richard Dyer, Social Studies teacher and Model UN instructor.
In order to fix this problem teachers urge for more reforms to be set in place to provide fair compensation. Some say Pay-Performance-Policies do just that.
According to the Center for American progress, pay-for-performance policies are designed to improve teacher performance and attract and retain higher quality teacher candidates. An example of the pay-for-performance is TAP. The Teacher Advancement Program was launched by the Milken family in 1999.
TAP offers new models for professional entry and training, with extra compensation and promotion opportunities. Reforms such as these have been implemented in South Carolina Public Schools by the South Carolina Board of Education in hopes of attracting more teachers in South Carolina.
The second main concern that teachers have is simply lack of support. Whether they have been teaching a little over one year or are more experienced, all of the teachers agreed on the issue of workload vs. support.
"We're literally running people out of the profession because there aren't enough hours in the day to do what we're asking them to do," said Patrick Kelly, advanced placement U.S. Government teacher.
"We're literally running people out of the profession because there aren't enough hours in the day to do what we're asking them to do," said Patrick Kelly, advanced placement U.S. Government teacher.
Teachers are everyday people with aspirations, needs, and responsibilities. However, some teachers feel with the work load it’s hard to want to continue in the profession considering the lack of compensation, support.
“More comparable benefits, but also more support for teachers,” Zehner said.
In hope to erase this shortage, the CEA (Correctional Education Association) and NEA (National Education Association) together fund the Legal Services benefit. This benefit provides assistance to members who are facing termination, contract non-renewal, or certificate revocation.
“For some teachers it could be going to a union state, because South Carolina is not a state with unions. So sometimes if they feel like they have more legal protection in another state that could be a reason,” said Victoria Murray, English and Speech teacher.
Whether it is compensation or support teachers are fleeing South Carolina schools. In order to reverse the shortage teachers want more pay and support.
For clarification purposes, all teachers mentioned in this article said they love working at Blythewood High School and the opinions and quotes are referring to the generalized thoughts of a population; not personal opinion.
Here is a look at what some Blythewood High School teachers say about why they continue to work at Blythewood.
“This is the best school i’ve been to. I have so much support here. I have fantastic students and just the community here is the best,” said Murray.
“This school, Blythewood, is very unique and special and the teachers are awesome. I’ve never met a nicer faculty that cared more about each other. It’s just a really welcoming environment that makes education fun,” said Zehner.
“I feel like this job is a calling for me,” Dyer said.
