Chapter 10: The Role of Principals in South Carolina’s Teacher Shortage

Considering school leadership turnover is often ignored in the media, this chapter fills this void by addressing how school leadership may influence teacher turnover and shortages. Evidence of teacher shortage and school leader and teacher turnover found in the literature will be further discussed. As all states have their specific issues caused by state-specific dynamics, this chapter begins with an overview of district, school, and personnel data to better understand the nuances of the focal state, South Carolina.

Data from a sample of public schools throughout South Carolina was collected to analyze the relationship between school principals and the teacher shortage crisis. The South Carolina Department of Education and National Center of Education Statistics served as data sources. The researcher acquired the school, teacher, principal, and student data from 2016 to 2020 for analysis and discussion purposes. Only schools with complete data (i.e., had available data across all variables) remained in the analysis. Table 10.1 describes the continuous variables used in the chapter.