Schools in the United States are facing chronic teacher shortages. The problem is underrepresented secondary teachers are leaving the teaching profession; therefore, leaving a limited representation of underrepresented secondary teachers in South Carolina. The purpose of this phenomenological study and research questions sought to explore the…

As the COVID-19 pandemic ended, the number of teachers leaving the profession soared resulting in a teacher shortage that is crippling schools. Public education is faced with unstaffed classrooms, uncertified teachers, and students missing quality instruction. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to illuminate the experiences before and…

Situated against teacher demand problems worldwide, rising teacher turnover and declining teacher education enrollment have rendered the state of South Carolina a region commonly described as facing a "teacher shortage crisis." This paper reports results from an evaluation of the Rural Recruitment Initiative (RRI), a state-level teacher…

Recent trends and education research focused on teacher shortages and why teachers were leaving the profession. Music educators and specifically band directors faced heightened stressors because of their jobs. The many hats a high school band director wore included numerous tasks such as organizing, teaching, and coaching innumerable students in…

States have increasingly relied on financial policies to address teacher staffing challenges, particularly in high need areas. Case in point, South Carolina developed the Rural Recruitment Initiative (RRI) to provide funding for recruitment and retention efforts in rural and other underserved districts facing severe teacher staffing challenges.…

This article describes the collaborative efforts of various state and national agencies working together to recruit and retain agriculture teachers in the states of Kentucky, South Carolina, and Ohio. We contrast multiple measures of recruitment and retention in these states with those from the comparator states of Arkansas, West Virginia, and…

Like other states, South Carolina has experienced a shortage of educators at all organizational levels within its school districts. Given this dynamic and the relatively limited opportunities for practitioners to earn advanced degrees, several South Carolina institutions of higher education banded together to form a consortium that would provide…

Background/Context: School districts across the United States face persistent difficulties recruiting and retaining teachers (García & Weiss, 2019; Schmitt & deCourcy, 2022). Over the last decade, every state in the south has faced a growing teacher shortage, with some facing shortages in all grades and subjects (U.S. Department of…

One in 10 public school students in the United States are designated as English learners (ELs), an increase of more than 25 percent over the past 2 decades (National Center for Education Statistics, 2022). In nearly half of states, the proportion of students designated as ELs has more than doubled since 2000. Further, several states--such as…

Teachers from other countries are being hired to fill vacancies in public schools. All states, in order to meet the demand, hire foreign teachers under various programs. The South Carolina Department of Education and a few private agencies sponsor teachers on a J-1 visa and place them in school districts that are willing to participate in the…

Teacher attrition is endemic in education, creating teacher quantity and quality gaps across schools that are often stratified by region and racialized nuance (Cowan et al., 2016; Scafidi et al., 2017). This reality is starkly reflected in South Carolina. Not too long ago, on May 1, 2019, a sea of approximately 10,000 people, dressed in red,…

Rural school districts throughout the country face increasing challenges with recruiting and retaining beginning teachers due to job demands that include a lack of mentoring, lower salaries than their urban and suburban counterparts, geographic isolation, requirements to take on additional nonteaching duties, and teaching assignments that include…

This article investigates the critical influence principals have on mitigating or exacerbating teacher turnover. Both South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) data and National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) Common Core of Data (CCD) from Academic Years 2016 to 2020 were used to analyze the research question. A Restricted Maximum…

The school reopening debate has reached an inflection point as districts weigh both the safety and learning implications of returning to in-person education this fall. Challenges with transitioning to distance learning during the spring made it clear that teachers, parents and students needed more and different resources to make supportive,…

This Special Issues Brief from the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders (GTL Center) outlines the unique characteristics of high-need schools, supports state and district leaders as they consider their role in implementing initiatives with a focus on equity, and explores how programs can be customized to meet the unique circumstances of a…