COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Center for Educator Recruitment, Retention and Advancement says that the number of teachers being hired is down in South Carolina, and State Education Superintendent Molly Spearman says more needs to be done to change that.
Molly Spearman understands the challenges of keeping teachers in the classroom before and during a pandemic.
“I know that we have had a teacher shortage for a number of years and we’ve been working on it," Spearman said, "Trying to boost our teacher pay, trying to offer other rewards, perks like scholarships if you go teach we would pay your scholarship off- we’ve been doing some things like that. But there are just some real challenges.”
Some of the key points in the supply and demand report were newly hired teachers were down 6% from last year, there are more vacant teaching positions and fewer departures overall from school districts.
“I was shocked," Spearman says, "proudly shocked- that our teaching force actually grew. We have about 5% more teachers- about 2,600 additional teachers hired in South Carolina this year. That was on what I believe was the districts really working to reduce class size, have extra teachers on hand to help our students overcome the challenges that they face.”
Spearman also laid out a list of actions to address the teacher shortage.
- Retroactively fund the annual step increase for 2020-21.
- Provide a minimum of a 2% salary increase for all teachers in fiscal year 2021-22 budget as well as work towards the goal of aligning South Carolina with the national average for teacher pay in future budgets.
- Support and increase awareness of successful grow-your-own initiatives such as Call Me MiSTER, ProTeam, Teacher Cadets, and SC-PRRMT.
- Provide teachers with protected unencumbered planning time to dedicate to non-instructional tasks.
- Fund the salary supplement for National Board Certified Teachers.
- Increase the teacher supply supplement amount available to teachers.
- Provide for step increases through 28 years of service.
- Streamline the teacher evaluation process and evaluate requirements for teacher certification and recertification to maximize efficiency.
“One of the most important things I think the legislature needs to do when they get back in session is to retroactively fund the 2% pay step teachers get each year for longevity, years of service and they did not receive that as promised at the beginning of the year," Spearman says.
“I’m certainly asking the general assembly for extra pay for our teachers and I hope that they will respond this year.”