Dickson County Schools leaders recently discussed annual teacher shortages as well as methods of enticing teachers to stay or commute to as the 2021-2022 school year is set to begin Monday.
The conversation was sparked at the monthly county school board meeting after Schools Director Dr. Danny Weeks presented former teachers exit survey results.
“Obviously, this time of year we are extremely busy,” said Weeks about human resources working to hire teachers before the year starts.
Weeks said the district is “down about 10 teachers.” The school district lost about “a half dozen” teachers last week, he said.
“I will share with you this has probably been our most difficult year of finding teachers of all kinds,” Weeks added.
Math, science, English, language arts teachers are again all difficult to find and hire, Weeks said.
The exit surveys from showed that about 27 percent left for another job opportunity, and about 20 percent left due to retirement.
Other survey results were 7 percent for “professional change,” 7 percent for “non-renewal,” 4 percent for “monetary,” and 4 percent for “moving”, and 2 percent for “staying home.”
Weeks said the school district is “constantly monitoring not only our salaries but also our benefits packages with our neighboring counties” to see if the district “can provide more value to our employees either directly in their pockets or through insurance packets.”
He also understood that sometimes teacher resignations aren’t always about pay or benefits.
“We realize there are circumstances that are beyond our control or beyond our employees control,” Weeks said.
Board member Josh Lewis asked that the survey included a question of “left job opportunity for monetary reasons” so the district had a better idea of how many teachers are leaving due to pay.
“We have this discussion over teacher pay every year,” Lewis said.
Board member Patricia Hudson, a long-time Dickson County High teacher, said could have taken a pay raise elsewhere.
“I could have gone to at least two or three adjoining counties and made more money if I had not felt a real tie to Dickson County. I wanted to be here,” Hudson said. “Sometimes I felt like I was penalized because I wanted to teach in my own county.”
Lewis said that up until recent years Dickson County residents alone could provide the workforce necessary to fill teaching positions. And, he said, people would accept less pay simply to work closer to home.
“I think now in the school system we have to recruit people from other counties,” Lewis said. “There are not enough teachers to support the school system in Dickson County.”
-Tennessean Magazine
Trenton Curtis 