photo by: Sylas May

As the coronavirus pandemic continues into a second full school year, data from the Lawrence school district suggests that educators are leaving their jobs midyear more than ever before.

The increase comes at a time when Kansas officials are already concerned with a shortage of teachers for Kansas schools.

The district in the last two school years has seen a significant increase in the number of teachers resigning when the school year was already underway. During the 2020-2021 school year, the first full school year after the pandemic emerged in the U.S. in March 2020, 19 teachers resigned from their positions, according to district data provided to the Journal-World.

This year, the district is already on pace to surpass that number, with a total of nine teachers having already resigned from their positions by the end of the first quarter of the school year. Prior to the pandemic, the school district recorded just six resignations midyear during the 2019-2020 school year.

But district spokeswoman Julie Boyle said there didn’t appear to be one prominent reason, except for the pandemic itself.

“Teachers resign for a variety of personal reasons, such as family needs, moves, health, other professional opportunities, etc.,” Boyle said in an email. “The district has seen an increase in the number of teacher resignations since the pandemic began.”

The labor union representing the district’s teachers doesn’t seem to think it’s caused by a single issue either, but Lindsay Buck, the union’s president, said a common theme was teachers feeling overwhelmed.

“More than likely, it’s hundreds of small things that are adding up, plus the toll the pandemic has taken on the whole community,” Buck said.

While the pandemic has contributed to public education becoming increasingly politicized — with communities across the country embroiled in conflict over issues like mask mandates and whether to conduct school in person or virtually — other issues in education have come into political crosshairs.

One example is recent concerns about schools teaching critical race theory, which also came up in Lawrence, as the Journal-World reported. Additionally, public education funding has long been a topic of argument in the Kansas Capitol.

All of those things together take a toll on teachers, Buck said.

“We know what’s best for our students is to have all of the highly qualified, dedicated educators we need working in our schools,” Buck said. “Unfortunately, we have policymakers who are more interested in banning books and sounding alarms over things that simply don’t exist. Our elected officials love to say how important schools are even while they look for ways to cut funding, siphon money away to private interests, and bind educators in miles of onerous rules and red tape. This all makes teaching and learning more difficult.”

When a teacher leaves midyear, the resignation also could create more work for those who remain. Samrie Devin, the district’s human resources director, said some teachers may take on a larger course load, which necessitates additional compensation for those teachers.

Additionally, she said the school district would begin searching for full-time replacements immediately and also would consider using a substitute to cover the work in the meantime with the “most qualified candidate.” The district also focuses on recruiting soon-to-be college graduates who may be able to fill open positions during winter break, she said.

As of Friday, the district had 22 specific teaching positions for the current school year posted on its application website.

Whether the measures mentioned by Devin will help address the issue locally remains to be seen. But it appears schools across the state have a teacher shortage, according to data provided to the Kansas State Board of Education this month.

The shortage in the state grew from 771 vacancies in the fall of 2020 to 1,253 vacancies in the fall of 2021, according to the data. That’s an increase of 482 teacher vacancies, or roughly 62%.

State board member Ann Mah, who represents Lawrence, told the Journal-World she was not aware of midyear resignations being a significant problem. But she did say she thought teachers retiring early and resigning at the end of the school year because of the increased stress of the pandemic have been apparent, leading to the overall teacher shortage.

“We have asked all the districts to pay attention to the social (and) emotional needs of both students and teachers,” Mah said, adding that many school districts are offering retention bonuses with their allotted federal pandemic relief funding to help stem the tide.

The Lawrence school district also went that route. The school board in September approved a plan that offered teachers and other school employees $1,500 in bonuses over the next school year, then again in the 2022-2023 school year, if they remain employed by the district. About 1,700 employees could be eligible for the bonus, which could cost the district about $5.3 million of its pandemic relief funding.

However, those bonuses have not yet been disbursed. Superintendent Anthony Lewis said at a recent school board meeting that the timeline for the first round of bonuses was recently changed because the district was still waiting for approval from the state, which needs to sign off on the district’s relief funding plan. He said he hoped to have an update on the plan soon.

He also said during the meeting that he understood that this year had been difficult for teachers, both locally and around the state.

“We want you to know we see you, we hear you, and we are working to continue to support you,” Lewis said.

Meanwhile, Buck told the Journal-World she didn’t believe teacher retention and shortage issues would improve soon, and she said political leaders would be to blame.

“Until elected leaders end their partisan bickering and pandering and instead focus on children who have more needs — not less — as we try to recover from the effects of a global pandemic, then I believe this trend is likely to worsen,” she said.