Data shows little change to Hamilton teacher retirement rates during pandemic

Teachers didn't leave Hamilton school boards during the pandemic at the anticipated sharp rates.

School board data shows that the total number of teachers who retired from the two largest local school boards have fluctuated over the last five years, with a total of 377 teachers - 237 public and 140 Catholic - retiring in the three pandemic school years.

At the public board, retirements dropped from a five-year high of 114 in 2018-19 to an average of 79 per year during the pandemic.

Superintendent of human resources Jamie Nunn said the board heard anecdotally that some folks chose to delay their retirement," hoping to end their career in person in a classroom. He said this was especially true in the first year of the pandemic.

There always was talk that the pandemic would be over the following year ... we would go back to a normal year," he said.

The Catholic board saw a similar spike in 2018-19 when 49 teachers retired. Two years later, numbers rose again to 55 in 2020-21 and 54 in 2021-22 amid the pandemic.

We've had no indication that there was a higher number of retirements in recent years," said Catholic board chair Pat Daly.

He cited demographics" as one of the key factors in retirements, adding that a hiring spree in the mid-to-late 1990s might have something to do with the spike just before the pandemic.

Teacher resignations at Hamilton's public board hit a five-year high last school year amid the pandemic.

Twenty-five teachers quit in 2021-22, up from 14 in 2017-18 and 17 in 2018-19. During the first two pandemic school years, 20 and 22 teachers quit.

It's unclear if the pandemic had any impact on resignation rates, however the upward trend appears to have started before the pandemic, with 14 teachers resigning in 2017-18 and 17 in 2018-19.

Public board spokesperson Rob Faulkner said in an email that there are a wide variety of reasons" teachers leave the board, including for a job in another board, moving out of the city and leaving the profession.

The Catholic board said there were so few" resignations that, for privacy reasons, it would not share the data.

Kate McCullough is an education reporter at The Spectator. kmccullough@thespec.com