Fewer teachers want to leave Colorado schools. But low pay, lack of safety remain issues.

About half of respondents to a Colorado Education Association survey said they are considering no longer teaching. Figuring out how to keep them is the state’s “most vital question,” CEA president said.

Fewer Colorado teachers are considering leaving the profession than in recent years, according to a report released Monday morning by the Colorado Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union. Still, almost half the 3,651 people who responded to a CEA survey last fall — about 10% of the nearly 40,000 active and retired educators who belong to the union — said they are contemplating exiting their classroom career.

The report, an annual publication that sums up the state of education in Colorado from CEA’s perspective, raises concerns about persistent issues that have bothered educators for years. Those include wages that have not caught up with the cost of living, a dwindling sense of creative freedom over their lessons and a hard time feeling safe in school.

In one eye-popping statistic, 48% of educators said that they cannot afford to live near where they work, while 82% of respondents said they know someone who has left teaching in the past year. “The path to school improvement is through the ability to keep educators in their positions for a number of years to be able to have improvements take hold,” CEA President Kevin Vick told The Colorado Sun. “If you are starting over with new staff every year, which many of our more challenging schools are, you never make progress because you are just starting from scratch every year.” Vick said the “most vital question” the state must answer is, “How are we keeping educators in their positions?”

Advocating for wider recognition of teachers’ expertise, more funding for schools and a greater focus on school safety tops CEA’s legislative priorities for the year. The union, which turns 150 this year, uses the report to highlight some of the strides Colorado made in the past year to better support public schools, educators and students. Among them, the state eliminated the budget stabilization factor, a budgeting tool devised during the Great Recession that pulled state funding from schools to address a state fiscal crisis.

“Public school employees have experienced firsthand the impact this underfunding has on students, and they knew the system needed to be made whole in order to have the resources needed to adequately support their students and to be compensated fairly for the important work they do,” the report states. “They were successful due to tireless activism and organizing, and Colorado public schools are now fully funded — but we have a long way to go before they are adequately funded, and our members will continue to organize until their schools are properly resourced.”

Additionally, educators across the state secured raises, with the average cost-of-living raise for teachers at 5.1%. Some also saw updates to their contracts, including protections for members of the LGBTQ community and better compensation for paraeducators in the pipeline to becoming certified teachers.

But much of the 32-page report doubles down on challenges that continue to make it difficult for educators to stay financially afloat or feel fulfilled in their work. Stubbornly low salaries are part of the problem, with the state’s average starting teacher salary running at $39,044, according to the report. Other professionals in support roles, such as bus drivers, maintenance workers and cafeteria staff earn even less — an average salary of $33,424. More than 60% of professionals in those jobs who completed the survey reported that they have struggled to afford housing costs in the past year.

Educators also say they are underappreciated and even ignored by district and state leaders, a major contributor to what CEA calls “the educator exodus.” The report notes that more than half of those who took the survey said teacher shortages have become more severe and that schools don’t have a sufficient pool of substitute teachers, “further straining classrooms and affecting student learning.” Of the CEA members who said they are thinking about leaving teaching in the near future — 47% of respondents, down from 58% in the last State of Education report — most pointed to heavy workloads as one of the main culprits behind their desire to leave.

Stress has ramped up for educators as they have continually had to redesign how they teach, Vick said, with districts regularly changing up curriculum or grading programs. That only makes it harder for teachers to build on their classroom skills from year to year, particularly as Vick said they’re generally provided few opportunities to give their input. “That’s part of why they are feeling really devalued,” he said. “They have a lot of expertise, and no one’s asking them to share it.” “Quite honestly,” Vick said, “the system can’t afford to lose anybody because we have now lost so many great educators.”

Colorado must also be more intentional about ensuring schools are safe spaces for students, teachers and other staff, the report states. More than 40% of those who completed the survey said they feel significantly or somewhat less safe than they did last year. Many teachers argue that more support for mental health and revisions to school discipline policies are more promising ways to enhance school safety than turning to safety drills and security guards. “When we create and maintain environments where safety is a priority, everyone can focus on teaching and learning without distraction or fear,” the report states. “In safe learning environments, students are more engaged and motivated, and educators can dedicate their full attention to teaching.”

Another key to curbing distractions in the classroom: limiting students’ cellphone use. Tighter restrictions on cellphones in school buildings have become a higher priority for many Colorado districts, and just over half of CEA members who responded to the survey indicated that they believe their school’s cellphone policy is being properly enforced.

Many of the frustrations and challenges cited in the report have become perennial concerns for educators, including pay, benefits, safety, curriculum and funding. That’s because some of these issues are “timeless” in education, Vick said. But with others, the state has simply not made enough progress. “In some ways we have actually backtracked, which is why turnover rates are much higher than they have been in the past,” he said. “So our goal now is to try and reverse that trend and make sure that people are having happy, healthy, long careers as educators.”

By Erica Breunlin/Colorado Sun

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