The Oglethorpe Echo
Oglethorpe County hired four new employees to teach for the upcoming school year; however, all four ended up deciding to take teaching jobs outside of the county. One of these positions still needs to be filled.
The teaching positions are meant to assist the growing population of Oglethorpe County, but filling those positions has proved to be a challenge due to smaller salaries, according to Oglethorpe County Superintendent Beverley Levine.
“The younger teachers are looking for more pay, and Oglethorpe County doesn’t have a whole lot to offer young folks,” Levine said.
In Oglethorpe County, the average teacher salary in 2023 was $48,949, which is 31.8% lower than the national average. These lower salaries have led teachers to apply to jobs in surrounding counties.
Combined with fewer incoming teachers nationwide, hiring for new positions is tough.
“The University of Georgia keeps telling us that they are not graduating near as many folks in the early childhood and special education area as they have in the past,” Levine said. “The numbers at the college level are down, which impacts our pool.”
Despite all this, the retention rate for current teachers in Oglethorpe County is at 93%, according to Levine.
Many teachers choose to stay in the school system for reasons other than salary. They come looking for stability, according to Levine.
Of the faculty, 35% have 21 or more years of experience, according to the Oglethorpe County Schools 2022-2023 Year in Review.
“Being here just felt like the more rural county I grew up in,” said Carol Jordan, an eighth-grade math teacher at Oglethorpe County Middle School. “It’s just more comfortable for me.”
Jordan has been working in the Oglethorpe County school system for 18 years, but she officially moved into the county from Oconee County last year due to Oconee’s rapid growth.
“The teachers that come here know they’re sacrificing a bigger salary,” Jordan said. “It's definitely a trade-off.”
Chad Galloway, a fifth-grade teacher at Oglethorpe County Elementary School, has lived in Clarke County since getting his doctorate degree at UGA, but went from teaching in Clarke County to Oglethorpe County nine years ago.
“When I started waking up and not looking forward to the day ahead of me, I knew it was time to either find a different occupation or find a different place of employment,” Galloway said.
Galloway applied to multiple counties after leaving his previous position at Gaines Elementary School in Athens and landed at OCES with “a much more positive environment.”
“I could be making like $10,000 more a year in Clarke County. Do I ever look back and regret living here? Absolutely not…” Galloway said. “You cannot put a price on your happiness and your sanity, and that's just more important.”
Galloway commutes in from Clarke County to teach at OCES. According to Levine, commuting from a separate county is done by around 50% of the faculty teaching at Oglethorpe County, and in a few cases, that commute is over an hour.
For teachers like Galloway and Jordan, they say the work environment outweighs other factors.
“I wake up in the morning and I look forward to seeing my kids. I look forward to the people I’m working with,” Galloway said.
McCain Bracewell contributed to this story.