Where are all the English teachers?

CMS says it's making progress in filling teacher positions before the start of the school year Monday, but the district's head of human resources says she's been surprised by one area they've been struggling to fill.

Chief Human Resources Officer Terri Cockerham said Tuesday that they're still looking for teachers for 74.5 positions. I'm guessing by the number that at least one of them is a part-time position.

Thirty-two of the vacancies are in elementary schools, 14 in middle schools and 28.5 in high schools. Last week, CMS reported having 155 openings without candidates.

Cockerham said the district is particularly looking for teachers in math, science, and career and technical education. "And this year, amazingly, English has been one we've been searching for," she said.

She said the district has fewer vacancies without a recommendation than last year.

CMS: Much teacher turnover is out of our hands

I figured Superintendent Heath Morrison and his crew would be teed up and ready to respond to the state's teacher turnover report released last week.

It was surely no surprise to district leaders that Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools' 2012-13 turnover rate of 15.99 percent was a 10-year high,  topping the state average.  And since I had taken a personal day when the report was made public at a state Board of Education meeting,  I figured Morrison's crew would be more than ready to talk about CMS challenges and solutions when I called Thursday.

After all,  Morrison has consistently identified teacher morale and retention as a key issue since he was hired in 2012.  I figured he or his top staff would be quick to note that he brought in a national consultants to talk to principals about ways to keep their best teachers,  that he convened advisory groups to talk about improving teacher compensation and school working climate,  that Mecklenburg County commissioners in 2012 spent $18.5 million to bump up the state's 1.2 percent raise to 3 percent for CMS teachers and other employees.

Cockerham

Instead, you may have noticed we ran a front-page story on Friday with no comment from CMS administrators.  The public information office tried to get Human Resources Chief Terri Cockerham to talk to me on Thursday,  but I heard nothing that day.

It wasn't until late Friday afternoon that the PIO emailed this response from Cockerham:

"The retention rate of quality teachers is an issue we will always focus on in CMS.  The turnover rate released by the State for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is 15.99% for the 2012-13 school year.

A large percentage (44% of the 15.99%) of teachers are listed as leaving as a result of turnover beyond control (retirees, deaths, health, family responsibilities and family relocation) and reasons initiated by LEA (low performance). Another percentage of this total number includes promotions to central office.  

Recent legislation and a lack of pay raises over numerous years has and will continue to have an impact on teacher retention as well.  Teachers have received one raise within the past five school years.  The superintendent is working extremely hard to help correct this issue both on the state level and local level.  We are concerned with any teacher that leaves and want to be sure that we do all we can to maintain quality teachers within the district. The newly released Strategic Plan 2018: For a Better Tomorrow, helps us lay out a plan to create an environment that rewards and encourages teachers to stay in CMS."

Recruiting,  retaining and rewarding  "a premier workforce"  is one of that plan's goals.  In October the school board approved a list of targets for 2018 that includes increasing the retention rate for employees rated "accomplished"  or  "distinguished."  However,  neither the baseline nor the target has been set yet.