Hayley Redding teaches ELA and social studies at Western Harnett Middle School near the Barbecue community in Harnett County. The 2014 Campbell University graduate said she chose to teach in a rural school district close to home because it’s where she feels she can make the biggest difference.
Researchers from Campbell University look to identify the factors behind North Carolina’s troubling teacher attrition rates, particularly in rural school districts
By Billy Liggett | Photos by Ben Brown
“No one goes to college to teach middle school,” Hayley Redding says in a quiet, empty classroom, minutes before 30 eighth graders will march in and turn the silence upside down. “They usually just kind of end up here.”
She’s joking, of course. Eighth graders aren’t so bad. But there is an unintentional truth to her words. Fewer people are going to college to teach, and not just middle school.
Across the country, the number of college students interested in a career in the teacher profession has fallen 50 percent since the 1990s and has reached its lowest level in the last 50 years, according to a recent study reported by The New York Times.
And job satisfaction among current teachers is also at a low point, especially in North Carolina. The state opened the 2023-24 academic year with more than 3,500 teaching vacancies in K-12 public schools, and while that was actually an improvement over the previous year, a striking number of new hires in 2023 were considered less qualified. Over the last decade, North Carolina has seen a 51 percent drop in enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs.
The New York Times referred to it as “The Great American Teacher Crisis.” Their opinion piece published in September asked: “People Don’t Want to Be Teachers Anymore. Can You Blame Them?”
Yes, the numbers are dire, and the overall perception of the profession is at an all-time low. That’s what makes Hayley Redding such a breath of fresh air.
“You can make a difference, and you can see that difference right in front of your eyes. It can happen in a class, in the hallway or even after school. You’re really making a difference in these children’s lives, and they are going to remember you for the experiences that you created for them.” — Hayley Redding, eighth-grade teacher at Western Harnett Middle School
A Harnett County native who stayed close to home to earn her Middle Grades English Education degree from Campbell University in 2014, Redding returned to Harnett County Schools to teach English language arts and social studies after graduation. Her passion for teaching was sparked, not coincidentally, in the eighth grade when a veteran teacher chose her to tutor classmates who were struggling or those who had missed too many classes.
Redding chose to concentrate on middle school education in college, and she chose to start her career at Western Harnett Middle School (just minutes from Sanford) not just for its proximity, but because it was a rural district with a diverse population of students with similar backgrounds as hers. Now in her fourth year, Redding calls it her dream job.
“Eighth graders are a very special breed, and I mean that in the best way possible,” she says. “You see so much growth and transition from a sixth grader to an eighth grader. And every single day is completely different. Every class period is completely different. I get joy in knowing that I’m not only teaching them skills, but I’m helping them grow as learners and grow as people.
“These children are my heart and soul. They bring me so much joy,” she adds. “That’s why I’m here.”
A study led by professors from Campbell University’s School of Education & Human Sciences seeks to learn more about teachers like Redding and the many on the opposite end of the spectrum who are fleeing the profession in record numbers.
Led by Dr. Laura Lunsford, the former assistant dean of psychology and social work and current adjunct professor of psychology (who just joined the National Science Foundation as an evaluator), “Leading Workforce Effectiveness: Teacher Retention Study” looks at the many factors leading to higher-than-normal teacher attrition during and since the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in rural school districts in North Carolina.
Campbell was one of two independent universities to receive a grant from the North Carolina Collaboratory as part of the N.C. Recovery Research Network. The organization joined the N.C. Department of Instruction to award $6.73 million to 20 academic research teams to understand the effectiveness of existing state and local programs supported through federal emergency relief legislation.
Lunsford and her colleagues Dr. Kathleen Castillo-Clark, Dr. Terrie Hampton-Jones and Dr. Justin Nelson have worked with undergraduate research students Rebecca Roope, Jeannie Biggs, Anya Campbell, Randi Agnew, Anna Barnak, Sarah Elizabeth Hall and Allison Cortes Rojas over the last year interviewing teachers, focus groups, school leaders and principals from rural public schools. Their goal is to learn more about the factors that influence a teacher’s decision to leave (or stay) and the challenges that arose or were revealed during the pandemic.
Their research is currently ongoing, and a final report isn’t expected until at least later this year. But already, Lunsford and her team have published three briefs on their findings.
What they’ve found so far is that the pandemic had a profound impact on the teaching profession, exacerbating existing issues regarding staffing shortages, lack of support and mental stresses while exposing deficiencies in available technology that allow teachers to do their jobs effectively.
“Simply put, we’re looking at the supporting and inhibiting factors — beyond just salary — for teacher retention,” Lunsford says. “What is it that makes teachers want to stay, and what are the barriers or factors that make them want to leave? Which of these factors can be influenced by school leaders? We’re looking at how districts handled a crisis like the pandemic and the lessons we can learn to help our rural school districts be more resilient in the future.
“And it’s hard to learn any of this without going to the districts and talking to the teachers themselves.”
Dr. Laura Lunsford, assistant dean of psychology and social work for the School of Education & Human Sciences at Campbell University, is leading a team of professors and students in research to determine the factors behind troubling attrition rates in North Carolina’s rural schools.
PREPPED FOR SUCCESS
The wall behind Hayley Redding’s desk in her classroom at Western Harnett Middle School is adorned with anywhere between 75 and 100 photos of her and her students from the past two years. Selfies, group shots and photos from school events. Smiles and hugs are everywhere.
Above the photos are four big letters, “LYSM.” Asked what they stand for, Redding laughs.
“It’s my ‘Love You So Much’ wall,” she says. “I only get these children for a year, but a great thing about working here is most of my babies are right up the hill at [Western Harnett High School] and I get to keep seeing them.”
Babies?, she’s asked.
“Well, I don’t have children of my own yet, so yes, these are my children,” she says. “And they just … they impress me every single day. I love watching them learn, and I love giving them a platform to experiment, be creative and become a leader. They’re just so impressive.”
Redding loves her job, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy. Staffing shortages — everything from teachers to bus drivers — have a domino effect and weigh down current teachers with extra burdens. Redding has had to take on planning lessons for classes other than hers in the past because those positions weren’t filled or were taken over by long-term substitutes with little to no training.
And training is a key to job satisfaction (at least to hers). Being in a class is a much different experience than any new teacher can anticipate, she says, even for college graduates.
“I feel like many feel overwhelmed with all of the responsibilities,” Redding says. “My degree at Campbell prepared me for this — especially the writing — but I’ve seen other new teachers come in and quickly realize teaching is not for them. It’s not what they envisioned, or it’s not what they prepared for.”
One of the three research briefs published by Lunsford’s team at Campbell deals with lessons gleaned from teachers and the effectiveness of Educator Preparation Provider programs (EPPs) like Campbell’s School of Education & Human Sciences. The big question they ask is, “What can these programs do to better prepare teachers for the challenges they’re currently facing in the post-COVID era of American public school education?”
“The end goal, of course, is to address our state’s teacher retention crisis, because that affects so much when it comes to educating our children,” says Castillo-Clark, author of the most recent research brief and Campbell’s elementary education program coordinator.
The shortage of qualified teachers with bachelor’s or master’s degrees in education has led to a spike in one-year emergency (and “residency”) licenses in North Carolina that allow teachers to apply as long as their degree includes 18 hours in a content area they desire to teach. Residency licenses can be renewed twice while the other types are limited and renewed on a case-by-case basis by the school district.
According to a 2023 article on edsurge.com and data collected by Kansas State University, North Carolina ranks in the Top 5 for states with the most “underqualified teachers” — in 2021, 14.7 percent of the state’s teachers were considered underqualified.
“The lack of quality-trained teachers is impacting our students,” Castillo-Clark says. “Many teachers are coming in without a teaching license and have never taught in a classroom before. We’ve spoken to HR directors who used to never hire teachers without a license, and now they’re bringing in just about anyone who turns in a resume. They arrive unprepared for the workplace conditions and added demands of the job, and that pressure trickles down to their classroom instruction and interactions with students in the classroom.”
She adds, “At Campbell, we’re developing professional skills outside of teaching. We’re setting our graduates up to meet the workplace demands of the profession by offering resiliency workshops and embedding trauma-informed practices into our curriculum. Additionally, we have redesigned our teacher preparation coursework and prioritized social emotional learning.
“Social emotional learning is no longer considered a ‘soft skill’ in this profession. You need to learn it so you are better prepared.”
Western Harnett Middle School teacher Hayley Redding said she promotes creativity and critical thinking in her classrooms. “When you’re a teacher, you can make a difference. It’s so rewarding to see them grow right in front of your very eyes.”
THE NEED FOR SUPPORT
Under-qualified teachers are just one of the factors addressed in the three research briefs the group has published since last fall. They’re also the most recent.
The first brief addressed the need for support for rural teachers and how that support not only keeps teachers happy, but leads to student success as well.
In that brief, the Campbell research team listed ways principals and other school leaders can influence factors to reduce teacher turnover, aside from pay raises, bonuses and incentives (which are decided by local and state governments).
Among their insights: District leaders and principals can make an immediate impact on teacher satisfaction by increasing resources and reducing job demands.
The study also suggests policymakers can make investments in resources that minimize disruptive behaviors from students. One elementary teacher they spoke to lauded moves by her school to hire an instructional coach and an “interventionist” for students with behavior issues. Another teacher said her school saw “more and more … severe behavioral and emotional problems” when students returned to classrooms after the pandemic.
“One thing that became very clear to us about the pandemic was that teacher retention actually increased in the first year,” Lunsford says. “We asked a lot of teachers about this, and it looks like this happened because [when they were teaching remotely], they didn’t have to perform all the extra duties required of them in a normal school setting. Certainly, they had to prepare more [to teach remotely], but they actually had time to prepare.
“Many of them were happy to just have a job, too, because they saw their friends and family members losing jobs when businesses were closing in that first year. So, many stuck it out.”
While pay may not be an overriding factor in the Campbell study, it’s not to be dismissed. The National Education Association ranks North Carolina 46th in the nation in beginning teacher pay and 34th overall in average teacher pay.
Harnett County Schools had a teacher attrition rate of 14.9 percent in 2022, losing 185 of its 1,313 teachers that year. Harnett’s rate is nearly double the state average of 7.78 percent, but lower than some of the hardest hit districts like Northampton County Schools (18.92), Hertford County Schools (16.67) and others in the highly rural northeastern part of the state.
Of all the challenges for teachers the pandemic exposed in 2020, perhaps the most glaring was the digital divide when schools transitioned to emergency remote teaching. According to the second research brief published by Lunsford and her team in January, rural school districts were unprepared for the transition (as were many families), and many suffered as schools worked through those issues.
As one superintendent in their study put it, “We were forced into the digital age.”
More than 1 million K-12 students were forced into fully remote or hybrid learning in the early months of the pandemic through 2021. At home, remote learning requires access to a computer (many districts provided laptops) and access to reliable high-speed internet for video streaming.
According to Public Schools First NC — a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization focused on public education issues in the state — 30 percent of K-12 students in North Carolina don’t have a reliable internet connection at home, and 24 percent don’t have the equipment necessary for remote learning (though the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction says every student had access to a laptop by 2021-22).
Not surprisingly, the digital divide is greater in counties that also experience the highest rate of teacher attrition. In Northampton County, which leads the state in attrition rate, roughly 57 percent of homes don’t have high-speed internet. Castillo-Clark says a big part of their study is to reveal the big lessons learned from going remote.
“Which districts had good infrastructure for technology and support, and how did they transition when everything went online?” she says. “We’re finding that in schools that had a solid infrastructure and in-house tech support in place, teachers had an easier time transitioning to emergency remote teaching and reported greater job satisfaction compared to schools with less support.”
Other insights from their research: Districts should invest in developing teachers’ Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge — or TPACK skills — to make them better equipped and to lower the chances of job burnout and emotional drain. State leaders should also accelerate broadband access and uniform tech support across all counties.
Said one superintendent: “Hotspots [in rural areas] have provided some measure of mitigation for lack of internet at home. It’s not going to solve everything, but it does help to kind of level the playing field for those families who do not have serviceable internet.”
The big takeaway from the research is that leaders should pay attention to the increased job demands in rural schools that come with emergency remote teaching or hybrid learning. The pandemic led to higher levels of burnout, particularly among older teachers with less tech savvy, because their schools placed little to no emphasis on TRACK prior to the shutdown.
An anonymous superintendent in the study said the pandemic was a lot of weight to bear for teachers and students.
“I think there were a lot of people who got discouraged because they weren’t cut out to work in a virtual environment,” they said. “Our kids weren’t cut out to work in a virtual environment. Our parents weren’t cut out for that. I don’t think [teachers] enjoyed delivering instruction the way they were delivering instruction. It was like a tidal wave. It just swept a lot of people up.”
From left: Associate Professor and Director of the Teaching Scholars Academy Dr. Terrie Hampton-Jones, student research assistants Jeannie Biggs and Rebecca Roope and Dr. Laura Lunsford have spent the last five months researching rural school districts throughout North Carolina to address high teacher attrition rates in those areas.
COURSE CHANGERS
When Lunsford, Castillo-Clark and their team of professors and students set out to conduct their research, the goal was simple: Address North Carolina’s teacher attrition problem — particularly in rural districts — and get to the heart of why teachers are leaving for other schools or leaving the profession altogether. “We saw trends, but we didn’t know enough,” Lunsford says, “so we thought it would be interesting to get out and actually talk to the teachers.”
“Campbell University is a teaching institution,” she adds, “but we [as professors] are also scholarly active. This study is a nice example of applied scholarship with an interdisciplinary team, which is something I think Campbell truly values.”
Dr. Chris Godwin, assistant dean and chair of Professional Education, adds that the program at Campbell places “value add” on faculty “teaching future teachers applicable skills and research-based pedagogies in ways which move these skill sets from theoretical research to actual classroom practice as students teach real “humans.”
Their work will really begin when the study is complete. Lunsford says her team is working with the state’s Department of Public Instruction to not only gather data, but share their findings. They plan to attend the North Carolina Association of School Administrators’ Conference on Educational Leadership in Wilmington in March to strengthen their partnership with that group and advocate for teacher support.
An immediate effect from the study is already visible in classrooms at Campbell’s School of Education & Human Sciences. According to Godwin, the biggest hurdle in teaching right now is “erasing” the learning loss which occurred across the board among students during the pandemic.
“Educator preparation programs have had to strengthen training in literacy and mathematics to address these learning losses and prepare preservice teachers in understanding how to scaffold instruction based upon the learner’s readiness,” Godwin says. “School districts across the state are creating more pathways and support programs to address teacher recruitment and retention efforts. Based on recent data, North Carolina is making gains in addressing our students’ learning losses due to the pandemic.”
Castillo-Clark says courses at Campbell are preparing teachers for a post-COVID career in the field by focusing on social emotional learning and other areas — outside of just “teaching” — so the surprises of the profession are kept to a minimum. But the study, she says, could also mean modifying current courses based on their findings.
“Teachers are saying they could be better prepared, so we have to look at how this impacts what we’re doing at the teacher preparation level and how we can modify what we do to meet those demands,” she says. “Because these post-pandemic trends, they’re not going away.”
The numbers currently aren’t telling a positive story, and they — combined with the divided political climate and clashing views on public education in the state — were bad enough for North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to declare a “state of emergency” for public education in 2023.
But for the professors and students involved in the research at Campbell University, there is a unanimous optimistic outlook. Castillo-Clark learned a new phrase at a recent conference she attended that she’s kept with her throughout the study — “COVID keeps.”
“They’re not always easy to see, but there were silver linings to the pandemic when it comes to education,” she says. “It’s helped shine a spotlight on the workplace demands of our teachers. Now, we are talking about it. It’s important to have these conversations so we can change how we prepare teachers to meet those demands and impart real change.”
_______
Learn more about the rural teacher attrition study at cukeepncteachers.com
