Teacher retention rates: What's driving educators out of the classroom?

Though she’s no longer teaching, Kimberlee Maniscalco’s thoughts often find their way back to her students.

 “I loved them and taught them as if they were family to me. We were. I called them our class family,” she said.

 The fond memories of her kindergarten class in Winthrop live on in the mementos and keepsakes she still holds on to.

Leaving these sweet faces and a job she’s dreamt of having since the second grade was difficult, but as a new school year begins, Maniscalco - or "Ms. M" as her kids called her - says she made the right decision to step away from teaching.

“As far as leaving, I knew I wanted to. It was just making that jump was very scary” said Maniscalco, “I worked so hard for this. I didn't even see anything else as a potential, and I weighed with it a lot. It was a lot of sleepless nights and crying”.

Maniscalco taught for six years across multiple districts and her decision to leave was largely driven by the birth of her first child, but that certainly wasn’t the only reason.

She said low pay, student loan debt, and stressful classrooms were also contributing circumstances.

These are some of the most common factors driving teachers out of the classroom today.

According to data from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, 8,360 teachers did not return to the classroom this year. That’s about 10% of the nearly 80,000 teachers across Massachusetts.

While the commonwealth’s 90% retention rate is higher than the national average of 84%, and is up from last year, it's still slightly lower than pre-pandemic levels.

Max Page is the president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, which represents more than 100,000 teachers at public schools, colleges and universities across the commonwealth.

 “There's a very broad demoralization that is leading people to reconsider whether they want to spend a lifetime in public schools,” said Page

 Whether it’s low wages, mental health issues, safety in the classroom, or high-stakes testing that’s forced educators to teach to the test, Page says teachers are burned out.

 “We just hear more and more people saying, yeah, I'm done. I can't. I can't stick it out. All the way through to retirement. I have to move on to something else,” he said.

 Page says the larger, better-funded school districts regularly have high retention rates.

It's the teachers in gateway cities - those midsize urban areas that anchor regional economies around the state that he's worried about hanging on to.

We analyzed retention rates at the 20 largest school districts in Massachusetts based on teacher population since 2022.

Teacher retention rates across years for top 20 districts

The Brockton school district, which had a budget shortfall of $18 million in 2023 and dealt with a rash of violence in schools last year, saw the biggest drop in teacher retention.

In 2022, 92% of teachers returned to the classroom. This year that number is down to 80%.

Over that same time period: Fall River, Framingham, Lawrence, Lynn, and New Bedford saw their rates fall between 6 and 7%.

Other districts are on the rebound.

The retention rate in Lawrence bounced from 70% in 2023 to 80% this year.

A 9% decline from 2022-2023 in Worcester was followed by a 6.5% in 2024.

 “We kind of know where, a lack of retention, what it can point to in the way of school, climate, school culture and leadership areas for us to continue to work on,” said Russell Johnson, the acting commissioner of DESE.

Johnson says surveys show the three primary reasons teachers leave are a career change, leadership issues and culture, with culture leading the way at 40%.

 “Those are factors we can work on. We can work to improve school leadership, we can work to improve school culture, and we have efforts underway to do so,” he said.

Johnson says the state is actively working with leadership to help strengthen culture at schools and increase networking supports to attract more educators to fill classroom roles.

The work to address the other factors lowering retention rates - like pay and benefits - is being done at the negotiating table with unions - some of which have left the classroom and hit the picket lines to bring about change. Johnston says there is still more work to be done

 “We've really, you know, thought long and hard about how can we make sure we're getting resources out across the entire state, and how are we focusing on some of those hard to fill positions,” he said.

 Maniscalco hopes her replacement cares as much about students as she did.

But as a new mom who is content with her career change, she has no regrets

“You impact these children's lives so much. But, unfortunately, teachers don't have enough time to do all that's expected of us, and that causes so much burnout so quickly,” she said.

 When we asked her what she would tell teachers heading into this school year, she had this to say.

 “This is hard because I want to tell them ‘you're doing great’…but there's a lot of guilt that comes with that,” Maniscalco said “If you feel strong enough to stay, stay for sure. But I personally would tell them that I'm very happy and there are other dreams and it's scary. But you can do what's best for you.”

If you'd like to see the retention rate in your child's school district click here.