Teacher Retention is at a crisis point for Eanes.
- Aaron Silva
- Feb 5
- 3 min read
While teacher pay and retention has been an ongoing problem in Eanes, our Board of Trustees is not treating it as the crisis it is. Eanes needs bold leadership and action now!
Our excellent teachers are part of the magic that has propelled Eanes to the successes we enjoy today. Those teachers are on the front lines, delivering day in and day out an education that our children deserve, and one that we expect. What would you think if there was a tool on the table to increase the pay for some of our best teachers and the Board of Trustees (BOT) has not made it a priority, or worse yet, completely ignored it?
What would you think if you were a teacher at Eanes? As the stewards of our school district, I would expect our BOT to avail themselves of every policy idea and every tool available to address teacher retention and teacher pay.
The Eanes Independent School District is facing a crisis due to teacher attrition. In 2023, the district lost 20% of its teachers, exceeding the state average by 7%. A November 2024 survey of 8,000 Eanes residents revealed that 58.9% of respondents considered teacher pay and retention to be among the top three issues facing the district, surpassing any other issue by 14%. Despite community demands for action, the Board of Trustees has not presented any proposals to address teacher attrition or reward high-performing teachers in the past ten years.
Contrast that with Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s State of the State speech where he made teacher retention and pay an emergency priority for the legislature to address. While this might be rhetoric or we disagree with what policy may follow, at the very least the leader of the state is recognizing this as a real issue and presenting his policy ideas for how Texans can address it.
“One thing we must do this session to attract and to keep the best teachers is to increase their pay. We want to make sure our teachers are on a path to earning a six-figure salary… but also that we increase the average teacher salary to an all-time record in Texas.” - Governor Greg Abbott
Last March I released a proposal to pay the best and most high performing teachers in Eanes more than $100,000 per year. In that same survey we sent to 8,000 Eanes residents, 68.1% of respondents said they would support a policy to pay our best teachers more than $100,000. Yet, there has still been no action by the Eanes Board of Trustees.
We asked respondents what other policies they would support to help our teachers at Eanes:.
72.1% support banning cell phones during class periods to eliminate disruptions.
54.7% support reducing or eliminating teacher responsibilities addressing student mental health.
53.8% support a policy to provide teachers with greater administrative staff support.
I follow Board of Trustees actions closely, and none of our members have proposed policies on teacher pay or other measures that demonstrate how we value teachers, their work, and show that we are taking steps to address their concerns.
To put a fine point on this issue, I wanted to provide you with a real example of inaction and misprioritization by the board to support our great teachers. The State of Texas has a program through the Texas Education Agency that is available to all school districts across Texas - the Teacher Incentive Allotment. The program provides additional pay and bonuses for the highest performing teacher in their school districts. Instead of pursuing this program for Eanes’ top teachers, the BOT has said that the application process is too difficult and since some teachers would get the pay and others wouldn’t, it would violate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. In my opinion, that is incredibly short-sighted.
Aaron Silva
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