Gwaltney hired 56 teachers this summer, out of a total of approximately 140 on staff. Eighty-six percent of her staff members have between zero and three years’ experience.
She is striving to change her school’s culture and thinks she has improved morale; two teachers have left this year, down from five at the same point last year. But she worries: “The bottom line fact is I will have great people and train them up, and they’ll transfer and go to a school that’s not quite so complex.”
The scope of the substitute problem is difficult to gauge because comprehensive data on this kind of classroom instability is not reported in a uniform way and often is not reported at all.