North Carolina sees increasing uptick in teachers quitting

North Carolina saw a nearly 16% spike in teachers quitting between this school year and last — a higher rate than seven other states, an analysis by Chalkbeat found.

Why it matters: That amounts to thousands of teachers leaving North Carolina schools as the state tries to make up for learning loss caused by the pandemic.

The big picture: Among all eight states where data was available, turnover was at its highest point in the last five years, the outlet reported.

• Hawaii, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Washington were all included in the analysis.

By the numbers: Nearly 5,500 more teachers left between September 2021 and September 2022, compared to that same period in 2019 and 2020, a report released in February by the Education Policy Initiative at Carolina found.

• Around 6% of teachers and 7% of principals left their roles in the 2021-2022 school year.

And vacancies increased by 50% between the first day of this school year compared to the same time in the 2021-2022 school year, according to a state report also released in February.