Funny story:
When I first came to North Carolina and got my teaching job, I couldn’t find a place to live in Henderson, so I ended up renting an apartment on Ashe Avenue in Raleigh.
As the landlady was scrutinizing me across the bed of her pick-up truck, the hot summer sun glinting off of her tooth, she asked what brought me down to North Carolina.
I said I was going to teach at Henderson Middle School in Vance County.
Without skipping a beat, she said:
“If you break the lease, I’m keeping your deposit.”
(I did break the lease, but not for the reason she thought I would. And she did keep the deposit.)
As I begin my ninth year of teaching in Vance County, all the Yankees I started with back in 1998 are gone. In fact, with the exception of a few individuals, almost everyone in that whole cohort I started with are gone, Yankee or Scion of the South.
Where have all the teachers gone, and why, and how can get get them to stay? Hint: it’s probably more than just money.