A new statewide survey offers critical insight into the factors driving teacher movement within South Carolina, revealing that while many educators are leaving their current districts, most are staying in public education.
The 2025 SC Teacher Exit Survey, conducted by the research organization SC Teacher, gathered responses from over 900 teachers across 41 school districts. The goal was to understand how working conditions influence teachers’ decisions to seek new positions or exit the profession entirely.
Movement Over Departure
The survey found a mixed picture, with a hopeful majority of teachers remaining in the state’s education system. Of all teachers who chose not to renew their contracts, 36% became lateral movers, transferring to another public school district in South Carolina. When excluding retirees from the data, over half of teachers who took the survey are continuing to teach elsewhere in the state. This suggests that the issue is often retention within a specific district rather than a mass exodus from the profession itself.
Key Drivers for Leaving
The findings reinforce the long-held belief that working conditions play a significant role in retention.
- Retirement Factors: Teachers choosing to retire are primarily motivated by the desire for higher salaries.
- Non-Retirement Factors: Teachers who are leaving their positions but not retiring are driven more by desires for a better work-life balance, including protected planning time and smaller class sizes.
A significant portion of respondents cited lack of resources, increasing demands, and policy pressures as key reasons for their decision to move. Education advocates argue that these results emphasize the necessity of creating supportive school environments where teachers feel valued and capable of succeeding.
The SC Teacher organization aims to provide these data to district leaders so they can identify and address specific challenges that contribute to feelings of being overwhelmed or undervalued among their educators. The organization plans to release a follow-up survey on school administrator working conditions in January.
Sign up for our Sunday Spectator. Delivered to your inbox every Sunday, with all the news from the week.
