Resignations, retirements rise among Montgomery County teachers

During Teacher Appreciation Week, the head of Montgomery County’s Teacher’s Union waived a red flag, arguing the county’s educators still need more love from the school district.

During the county executive’s weekly Wednesday briefing, Montgomery County Education Association (MCEA) President Jennifer Martin told Reporters that 787 teachers have already indicated they plan to leave at the end of this school year. They're either retiring or resigning.

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"It’s you know, far and away, the highest I’ve ever seen in my time in the system," said Martin, who told FOX 5 she’s been involved with MCPS since at least 2001. MCEA provided FOX 5 with these end of school year resignation figures:

2019: 494

2020: 444

2021: 543

2022: 787 (indicated)

MCPS has over 13,000 teachers alone. The union president told FOX 5, that 267 of the 787 teachers are retirees – meaning more than half are planning to leave for other reasons.

FOX 5 was told that compensation for the workload is a factor, along with the increase of standardization in testing, curriculum issues, and an increase in data collection. Martin said for county teachers, this means having to provide lessons based on a system schedule, instead of providing lessons based on what the student’s learning needs are.  

"We still have in the neighborhood of three or 400 positions that were never filled this year. So we’ve had a staffing shortage that’s been ongoing and exacerbated by COVID," Martin said. "The obvious answer is to provide that trust and respect in our expertise and our dedication in the work, to give us more scope to do what we know our students need."

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Helen Nixon, the Chief of Human Resources and Development for Montgomery County Public Schools told FOX 5, "What we know is for those teachers who worked for us and gave us really great years of service, we are grateful. We wish them well. And our focus is to do all we can do to find great talent across the country and across the region so when school starts in the fall, we’re ready."

Nixon acknowledged the attrition. She also noted MCPS has two recruiters dedicated to actively working on this matter and has support from the rest of the school staff. Nixon said the recruiters have been able to fill 289 teaching positions for the fall. She also confirmed MCPS still has 554 teacher and substitute vacancies.

In response to the standardization and data complaint, Nixon told FOX 5 that classroom data is critical to finding where students are in their learning.

FOX 5 also checked with Fairfax County Public Schools. We did not hear back from their teacher union, but the school system says as of last month, they have around 208 teacher vacancies with more than 15,000 teachers employed. 

This figure did not appear to include substitute vacancies.