About 2024 Teacher Turnover Calculations

Estimating the costs of turnover

The calculator’s per-teacher estimates are based on five studies that calculated the financial costs of the separation, recruiting, hiring, and training activities associated with teacher turnover. Table 1 lists the nine districts included in these underlying studies, along with characteristics of each district, the per-teacher turnover cost, and references to each study. While the underlying studies calculated costs in the year of data collection, Table 1 values were adjusted for inflation to present costs in 2024 dollars. The three per-teacher estimates offered in the calculator are:

$11,860 for small districts (under 10,000 students)
$16,450 for medium districts (10,000–50,000 students)
$24,930 for large districts (more than 50,000 students)

These estimates were created by averaging the reported turnover costs for every district in each size category. Given the differences in district contexts and reported turnover costs within each category, users of the calculator may refer to Table 1 to determine if their district is similar to any of the studied districts and adjust estimates as needed.

Table 1: Estimates of Per-Teacher Cost of Turnover

School district	Number of students	Number of schools	Per-pupil expenditures	Geographic context	Turnover cost per teacher (in 2024 $)
Jemez Valley Public Schools^a	359	4	$24,824	Rural	$7,270
Granville County Public Schools^a	6,748	16	$11,086	Rural	$16,445
Tulsa Public Schools^b	33,871	69	$13,909	City	$12,206
St. Lucie County School District^c	45,661	53	$11,275	City	$7,489
Boston Public Schools^d	46,367	109	$39,887	City	$29,650
Milwaukee Public Schools^a	67,500	156	$17,506	City	$25,521
Unidentified Midwestern District^e	90,000	160	Not available	City	$23,971
Broward County School District^c	254,732	325	$12,217	Suburb	$20,461
Chicago Public School^a	321,666	643	$21,914	City	$29,762

Notes: Data on geographic context, per-pupil expenditure, number of students, and number of schools are from NCES Common Core of Data (CCD) district profile information for each district. The geographic context, number of schools, and number of students are from the 2022–23 school year, while the expenditures per pupil were from the 2020–21 school year. The number of students and schools for the unidentified Midwestern district was reported by Milanowski and Odden (2007). Cost estimates from each study were adjusted for inflation using the Consumer Price Index inflation calculator to reflect the dollar amount in January 2024. Turnover costs include district- and school-level costs for most districts but only include district-level costs for Tulsa Public Schools, St. Lucie County School District, and Broward County School District.

Understanding the costs of replacing a teacher

Replacing a teacher requires significant resources and personnel time. Although the costs within a district or school can vary substantially, the most significant financial costs are those associated with separation, recruiting and hiring new teachers, and training replacements. Table 2 lists activities that are often associated with replacing a teacher, all of which have related costs. Not every study captures each of these costs. Importantly, these estimated costs do not capture other consequences of turnover, such as academic learning losses for students that can occur when their teachers or other teachers in their school leave.

Table 2: Specific Costs Associated With Teacher Turnover

SEPARATION COSTS	Paying substitutes to cover for midyear departures Removing teachers from payroll and health plans and processing eligible refunds of retirement contributions Conducting and analyzing exit surveys
RECRUITMENT AND HIRING COSTS	Holding and/or attending job fairs Offering new hires signing bonuses, relocation bonuses, or other subsidies Developing job advertisements and advertising open positions Working with teacher preparation programs to identify candidates and coordinating recruitment activities with state or local programs Responding to inquiries from prospective candidates, corresponding with applicants, and drafting offer or rejection letters Scheduling site visits and conducting interviews Convening hiring committee members to review resumes, schedule current staff and interviewees, and conduct interviews Conducting criminal background checks, health record checks, credentialing checks, and reference checks Purchasing equipment for digital fingerprinting Adding new teachers to payroll and benefit programs Archiving teacher records
TRAINING COSTS	Coordinating and staffing mentoring programs and related forms of structured induction, including training costs and stipends for mentors and payments to substitutes who replace mentors with reduced teaching loads Holding welcome or orientation events for new staff Traveling to training sessions and professional meetings Conducting onboarding workshops and professional development activities Paying substitutes while teachers attend training activities

For more details on the methodology of the calculator and the underlying studies used to estimate the cost of teacher turnover, please see the technical supplement.

^a Barnes, G., Crowe, E., & Schaefer, B. (2007). The cost of teacher turnover in five school districts: A pilot study. National Commission on Teaching and America's Future.

^b Synar, E., & Maiden, J. (2012). A comprehensive model for estimating the financial impact of teacher turnover. Journal of Education Finance, 38(2), 130–144.

^c Watlington, E., Shockley, R., Guglielmino, P., & Felsher, R. (2010). The high cost of leaving: An analysis of the cost of teacher turnover. Journal of Education Finance, 36(1), 22–37.

^d Levy, A. J., Joy, L., Ellis, P., Jablonski, E., & Karelitz, T. M. (2012). Estimating teacher turnover costs: A case study. Journal of Education Finance, 38(2), 102–129.

^e Milanowski, A., & Odden, A. (2007). A new approach to the cost of teacher turnover. School Finance Redesign Project, Center on Reinventing Public Education.