Teacher mobility in North Carolina during COVID-19: An empirical analysis

<div class="page" title="Page 2"> <div class="layoutArea"> <div class="column"> In early 2020, COVID-19 appeared in the United States and caused almost all schools across the nation to close and dramatically change the ways by which teachers taught students. This paper discusses the effect of differing instructional modes (virtual, hybrid, in-person) during SY 2020-2021 on teacher retention during COVID-19 in the North Carolina Public School system. It leverages data from the COVID-19 School Data Hub to determine school closures and utilizes a difference-in-difference framework to measure the extent of mobility following NC teachers since SY 2015. I find that teachers who taught using hybrid and virtual instruction had higher turnover during SY 2020 and 2021 compared to those who taught in-person. Additionally, non- White teachers and those with more experience were more likely to move schools or leave teaching in SY 2021, one year after learning mode variations, than in SY 2020. </div> </div> </div>