By FULLER ROYAL
Staff Writer

During the 2005-06 school year the Whiteville City Schools lost 18 of its 183 licensed teachers – a turnover percentage rate of 9.84 percent that gives the system the lowest rate in Southeastern North Carolina.

“We’re looking okay,” said Assistant Superintendent Barbara Yates. “I won’t say good, but, okay.”

“Every year, we seem to decrease a little,” she said told the Whiteville City Schools Board of Education during a recent meeting.

Superintendent Danny McPherson said that the low rate is significant.

“We should expect some turnover,” he said. “But we want to keep it as low as possible.”

Yates said that several of those 18 who exited were retirements.

Statewide, the average teacher turnover rate was 12.95 percent.

Regionally, Clinton City Schools had the highest teacher turnover rate – 15 out of every 100 teachers quit or retired.

New Hanover County Schools was next – 14 out of every 100 teachers there left last year.

In Columbus, Brunswick, Cumberland, Pender and Robeson counties, those school systems saw 13 percent of their teachers walk out the door.

In Sampson County, 12 percent of the teachers left.

Statewide, Bertie County lost 26 percent of its teachers last year, giving it the highest turnover rate in the state.

Bertie County’s high school is one of the 19 poorest performing high schools in the state and is under the scrutiny of the State Board of Education as a high school that may be taken over by the state.

Mitchell County Schools has the lowest teacher turnover rate – 2 percent.

While Whiteville’s turnover rate is lower that Columbus County’s this year, the five-year-average turnover rate for the county schools is actually lower – 9.27 percent.

The city’s five-year-average is 11.87 percent. Statewide, the five-year-average is 12.57 percent.

Yates said that a low turnover rate can be difficult to maintain because “teachers have a great deal of mobility.”

“The grass may be greener somewhere else,” she said noting that some systems have 12 percent teacher-pay supplements and $4,500 signing bonuses.