North Charlotte Today

Despite more than two years since the first COVID-19 shutdowns and in-home schooling orders, school districts across the country, including Charlotte's, are still struggling to fill teaching positions. 

With the academic year set to start in a few weeks, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools still need about 400 teachers to be fully staffed. A reported 2,100 teachers left the district since the last school year. 

Even after the full return to classrooms, COVID-19 policies have hurt students.

“I have seen some kids being dispersed into my class, and then they're just all just sitting in the back of the classroom, on their phones just bored,” Moises Guerrero, a student at East Mecklenburg High School, said in a WCNC report. 

Guerrero was referring to “dispersions,” which occurred when teachers — regulars or substitutes — got sent into other classrooms or even the gymnasium.

“I've seen teachers that I've been with that later have quit or if not just gone to a different state,” Guerrero said, “and they previously complained about just the pay that they got from school.”

Currently, only 41 of the district’s 180 schools are fully staffed. Last school year, many of the resignations came from low-income schools.

"It's always a challenge when you're talking about our schools that receive supplemental Title One funding,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Interim Superintendent Hugh Hattabaugh said in the report, though he said some incentives are in place to compensate this year. 

"We're providing additional funds to pull teachers to those schools of $7,600 per teacher, the principals that have proven track records of success, we're providing them $18,000,” Hattabaugh said.

Consistency and dedicated teachers are what the students want. 

"I'm just grateful that I'm able to have teachers help — just to help me,” Guerrero said.