…they are leaving the profession.

And there are not enough people willing to replace them in our classrooms.

When I say “Dear North Carolina,” I do not mean the NC General Assembly. We already know how they feel about public education. This is addressed to those people who say they are for a strong public education system but keep voting for the very people who are weakening it in Raleigh.

For years there have been vacancies in our schools. Still there are thousands.

Right after the pandemic, those numbers were much higher. On September 26, 2022, there were well over 15,000 vacancies on TeachNC’s job search feature.

15,000+ vacancies down to just over 6200? One might think that means the state was able to fill almost 9000 vacancies in just over three years.

Don’t think so.

Maybe they were longer being advertised because they were left unfilled for such a long time?

Maybe they they removed intentionally to make the total look more appealing in order to hide the fact that many were never going to be filled because of the way that North Carolina treats its educators?

Maybe it was just decided that since those vacancies had not been filled that late in the school year those duties were just being completed by others as extra work and then it was decided that saving the money from not having to pay for new educators could be used someplace else like tax cuts?

Before the pandemic even started, this state was already facing a teacher candidate shortage – one that has been manufactured with “reforms” that have devalued the profession in ways that have teacher prep programs in our colleges and universities seeing an over 30% drop in students. Programs like TeachNC have not shown the ability to replenish that pipeline with career educators.

Neglecting teacher input, massive workloads, and an NC General Assembly that didn’t even pass a budget honoring the LEANDRO decision and cherry-picks stats to prop up a false narrative have created a perfect storm.

Please remember that before the pandemic, most every school system was scratching to make sure there was a teacher in every classroom – DURING AN ECONOMIC BOOM.

So before all of these “education reform” groups start talking about what they will do about “recruiting” good teacher candidates, it might be better for them to ask, “What the hell is NC doing to keep veteran teachers in the classrooms?”

Taking away due-process rights, being the only state in the southeast that does not offer graduate degree pay, and making teachers the only state employees that do not receive longevity pay have hurt this state horribly.