SC has a teacher shortage. But teachers who leave can be blackballed from coming back

“The Educator Assistance Act lays out reasonable timelines that give an educator in a breach-of-contract situation more certainty while simultaneously allowing the State Board to make situation-specific decisions,” Raven said. “The SCDE is appreciative of (bill sponsor Rep. Shannon) Erickson’s leadership in finding this push to find the balance between providing stability to students through a consistent classroom presence and accounting for unavoidable circumstances that may arise to take a teacher out of their classroom.”

‘We’re not treated as professionals’

One former teacher spoke to The State anonymously because she has a breach of contract complaint pending before the Board of Education. She moved to South Carolina to take a position as an art teacher, only to find a disorganized classroom lacking supplies and twice the number of classes on her schedule as she had agreed to.

“I spoke to the principal, and he said, ’Well, you signed a contract, and if you leave, we can take your certification,’” the teacher said. “I have two bachelors and a masters. You want to know why teachers are leaving? It’s because we’re not treated as professionals.”

After taking off the rest of the school year, the teacher reached back out to the school district to see if she would be able to seek another teaching job. The district told her they had long since forgotten to forward their breach-of-contract complaint to the state board — but thanks to her reminder, would do so now.

While this teacher is fighting her suspension, she’s now working outside of education and is unsure if she will go back to the classroom at this point even if she avoids a suspension.

Other teachers report similar experiences. One teacher in Greenville County told the state board she resigned because the district had her commuting between classes at two different schools with very little time for her to get from one to the other.

Sherry East, president of the South Carolina Education Association, once taught in Aiken County but applied for a job with the Rock Hill school district because it would be shorter drive to her family in West Virginia. She thought everything was going well, even looking at apartments in Rock Hill, until the York County school district told her it was not going to happen, because Aiken was not going to let her out of her contract.

“I said, ‘They can’t do that, I’ll just leave,’” East remembers. “And they said, ‘They don’t have to let you go, and if you do they can take your certificate, and we won’t be able to hire you.’”

East had to ride out the rest of her contract that year, and now teaches in Fort Mill in York County.

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