Fewer Alabama teachers are retiring. That is according to the Teachers’ Retirement System (TRS), which compiled the retirement rates of all 142 public school districts in the state during the 2022-23 school year. Rates include all employees, not just teachers. Researchers found that 2,810 public education employees retired last school year. This is far less than the previous two school years’ retirements rates, which were 3,337 and 3,515. In fact, this is the lowest number of retired education employees since 2013.
“We're not at all surprised at the reduction in the rate of retirement,” said Amy Marlowe, executive director of the Alabama Education Association. “In fact, it was quite planned as far as moves that we have made with the legislature to increase teacher salaries, not just in the beginning years, but really taking care of some problems that we had in our teacher salary schedules.”
After several years of teacher retention taskforce meetings and looking at other states’ success stories, Marlowe said the Alabama Legislature decided to increase teacher salaries in the 2022 legislative session. All pay raises went into effect this past school year. For teachers with nine or more years of experience, they received a salary raise as high as 11%. For teachers with more than 20 years of experience, the salary raise was as high as 27%. Marlowe said this increase in teacher pay is one of the biggest reasons why teacher retirements slowed this past school year.
“When you're getting a 27% pay raise, you think, ‘Maybe I'm not going to retire; I'm going to take advantage of having this money,’” she said. “The way retirement is calculated for public education employees is it’s the highest three [years] of their last 10 years of employment. If you're a schoolteacher that’s been working 23 years at a lower rate of pay and then, all of a sudden, get a 27% pay raise, you're going to stay and work for three years. Because once you retire, that amount is what you have for the rest of your life. They haven't received cost of living adjustments. They don't receive automatic increases like they do with social security. That’s the amount that they've got to live on.”
In addition to salary raises and salary schedule improvements, math, science and technology teachers could receive as much as $20,000 more per year thanks to the Alabama State Department of Education’s TEAMS Program.
“It all comes down to the same factor,” Marlowe said. “Working conditions are an issue, but, at the end of the day, all studies show that teacher pay is the number one reason that teachers will continue on and stay in their careers past the time that they can retire. They're looking to prepare for their retirement years.”
Although not every Alabamian is an educator or has school-aged children, Marlowe said keeping teachers in Alabama classrooms impacts everybody.
“My mom's always told me, ‘A high tide lifts all ships,’” she said. “This affects every walking portion of life in Alabama. Everything goes back to the classroom and what a teacher, [who] can be as early as pre-K, taught a student to build the foundations of their lives. Anything that enriches what's going on in an Alabama classroom is going to enrich the lives of every Alabamian. As far as what benefit we have in employees staying in the classroom, there is no substitute for experience. We see reading programs and theories come and go, but, at the end of the day, the veteran schoolteacher in the classroom is what makes [it all] work.”
AEA is also working on an initiative to raise Alabama’s starting teaching salary to a minimum of $45,000 per year. Marlowe said if the Alabama Legislature approves this salary next legislative session, Alabama will have the highest starting teaching salary of any state in the Southeast. The current starting salary is $44,226.
While the overall number of teacher retirements slowed during the 2022-23 school year, certain school districts saw increased retirements.
The following school districts had the largest increase in employee retirement this past school year:
- Baldwin County – 145 retirements, up from 132
- Blount County – 40 retirements, up from 27
- Dothan City – 34 retirements, up from 25
- Russell County – 25 retirements, up from 14
- Albertville City – 24 retirements, up from 14
- Franklin County – 20 retirements, up from 10
Many of Alabama’s larger, metro school districts continue to see high retirement rates.
Here are the 10 school districts with the highest retirement rates during the 2022-23 school year. Note: All school districts except Baldwin County saw fewer retirements last school year compared to the 2021-22 school year:
1. Mobile County – 239 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
2. Baldwin County – 145 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
3. Jefferson County – 120 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
4. Madison County – 98 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
5. Montgomery County – 93 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
6. Shelby County – 77 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
7. Hoover City – 73 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
8. Birmingham City – 72 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
9. Huntsville City – 67 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
10. Tuscaloosa County – 61 retirements during the 2022-23 school year
Despite the high retirement rates, Marlowe said it is quite common for teachers to retire or transfer out of large, metro school districts in favor of rural and suburban school districts.
“Most of the systems that [defied] the trend of the low retirements were our largest school systems,” she said. “Lots of times, employees are in those larger school systems [because of] a spouse or they have they moved to the area. If you're going to move into Alabama, chances are you're moving into the Birmingham metro area, Mobile, Baldwin [County] especially, and then once you get in that 25 years, we see a lot of transitioning in those areas, not just in retirement but also in transfers. I'm not alarmed at all about the fact that those larger school districts were the ones that had the larger retirement numbers. I just think that has to do with socioeconomic trends and demographics.”
Beyond pay bumps and salary raises, Marlowe said there are several other ways school districts can retain their educators.
“Some of our smaller school systems that have the least amount of resources [and] don't really have a lot of money often do the very best job at creating a great school culture,” she said. “[They make] a place where people really feel like they want to get up and come to work every day. They put a lot of effort into their administration and who the principal is at the school and making sure they are highly trained and organized. The places that have healthy school cultures very rarely [have] high retirement rates or transfer rates.”
Marlowe said school districts can also offer more paid professional development days. Professional development days are learning days for educators and staff to learn new skills for their classrooms. These often happen during the weeks leading up to the opening day of school.
“The school districts where teachers have the most loyalty [should] recognize that and go ahead and put them on the payroll,” Marlowe said. “They’re not giving up their day in the summer, that they’re not paid for, to come and get everything ready for the students that will arrive in the next few weeks.”
The TRS data on retirement rates for the 2022-23 school year and previous school years can be found here. More information on teacher retirement benefits can be found on the TRS website.
