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Turnover rates for schools have increased in the state of Utah, and at NS. According to a report by the Utah Education Policy Center, 56 percent of teachers will leave teaching in Utah before their eighth year, a rate that is significantly higher than the national average. Over the last 10 years, X teachers have left NS before their third year. Amid a nationwide teacher shortage, NS is left to combat teacher burnout and employee retention.
Teacher burnout seems to be one of the largest contributors to high turnover rates across the state of Utah. Teachers have seen an increase in stress, workload, and high expectations for performance. NS Instructional Coach, Ryan Syme, was hired by the district to help new teachers adjust to the profession and to help all teachers improve.
“Teaching is harder than people think,” Syme said, “anybody can set up a performance, and anybody can create a PowerPoint, but the true job of a teacher is to make sure that the kids are learning something and to do that, you have to partner with the kids.”
Syme expressed how teachers are expect- ed to improve test scores, all while keeping students engaged. NS teachers do a lot to help their students succeed.
“That obligation to keeping kids safe is constant, the obligation to be in front of the kids is constant,” said Syme. “What has changed is the expectations. We’re teaching things in third grade that we used to teach in junior high, and we’re teaching things in the high school that we used to only teach at the college level.”
But not all students are motivated to l e a r n at the level that is expected of them. Class size and student dropout rates have also continuously increased at NS over recent years. This is all translated into further stress and a feeling of defeat in the classroom. Teachers just aren’t able to stay motivated.
NS Principal, Christine Straatman explained how teachers can put a lot of added pressure on themselves because of the sense of accountability that comes with becoming a teacher. Teachers are motivated to teach because they want to make a difference to their students, so when they feel like they don’t, teachers will often blame themselves for the lack of apathy in their students.
“Trending in education, we’re seeing more of that social-emotional support that students need,” Straat- man said. “Teachers, I think, are compassionate. To go into education, you have to be compassionate, and you have to have a big heart, and when you’re empathetic, that can tend to take you to internalize, and that can be another source of stress that can lead to burnout.”
The coronavirus has also taken a toll on the mental well-being of teachers across the nation, and in turn, affects turnover rates.
According to a report written by The Brookings Institution, “We find that, during the pandemic, teachers have become less certain that they would work a full career in the classroom. In March 2020, 74 percent of teachers reported that they expected to work as a teacher until retirement, while 9 percent said they did not expect to, and 16 percent did not know. In contrast, in March 2021, 69 percent of teachers reported they expected to work as a teacher until retirement, while 9 percent reported they did not expect to, and 22 percent said they did not know.”
High turnover rates have also led to NS administrators struggling to fill certain positions that have always had higher than average turnover rates. “What I’ve found, depending on the position, obviously some are harder to fill than others,” said Straatman, “We have a shortage of math, we have a shortage of some of our CTE teachers, and so they can be difficult to fill in any district. What I’ve found though, a lot of people want to come back and teach here.”
Straatman expressed how teachers are drawn to NS because of the relatively high salaries and the opportunity to live near family. Many NS teachers are alumni of the school. Although the nationwide teacher short- age has had significantly less of an effect on NS, the administration can still find it hard to find qualified teachers in certain fields such as CTE and special education.
Pay has a large impact on teacher retention. NS has always taken a priority in accommodating student and teacher needs but NS can’t always compete in the competitive scene because of lack of funding. Teachers at NS stay because they love the job of an educator.
”It is that important that we have kids involved in extracurriculars.” said Straatman, “That doesn’t happen on its own, it takes teachers. If we had a faculty of one hundred twenty, that a large school has, you have more teachers to carry them. When you’re in a small district like we are, there’s a small number of teachers that can carry that, and they do that for kids, and they do that because they love what they’re doing.”
