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As the COVID-19 pandemic gets farther away, some bright spots in the data for teacher retention in Kansas are emerging. 

"We're keeping more people in the profession,” Shane Carter, director of KSDE teacher licensure, recently told the Kansas State Board of Education. “They're choosing to stay.”  

Carter said according to self-reported data from school districts, Kansas had 43,401 educators employed during the 2025-26 school year, an increase of 121 from 43,280 in 2024-25. The number of educators who exited their positions decreased by 562, from 4,630 in 2024-25 to 4,068 in 2025-26. 

Carter said exit data related to vacancies reported for the 2025-26 school year indicates educators who exited their positions sometime between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025.  

He said the number of retirements reported for the 2025-26 school year was 857, down from 910 the previous year.  

“The retirements have continued to go down since COVID,” Carter told board members. “Some stabilization there. When you see that large drop in vacancy data that’s reported, we’re keeping more people in the profession. They’re choosing to stay versus leave.”   

The number of educators leaving the profession decreased by 117 from 2024-25 to 2025-26, Carter said. The number of educators leaving the state also decreased by 50 over the same period. 

“People are staying in Kansas at a higher rate than what are leaving,” he said. 

Carter shared the following demographic and economic data for the 2025-26 school year:  

• The average age of teachers is 43.1; average age of all educators is 44.2.  

• The largest group of current educators has one to four years of experience. “We’re a little greener, a little younger in who’s serving,” Carter said, while there was an increase in the mean year of experience to 14, up from 13 the previous year. 

• The average salary for first-year educators is $46,407, an increase of nearly $1,800 from the previous year while the average salary for teachers is $70,240, up from $67,931 from the year before.  

• Nearly 88% of the educator workforce stayed in their district during the 2025-26 school year (38,694), a jump from 38,033 who moved during the previous school year. There were also 348 fewer educators who moved to another Kansas school district from 2024-25 to 2025-26.  

Another significant data point Carter said is the number of teachers who are being retained after their third year in the profession. After hitting a low of only 86.25% of third-year teachers staying in the classroom in 2022, that percentage gradually increased to 90.89% during the 2025-26 school year, something that can be attributed to having a veteran teacher as a mentor. 

“We had a drop around COVID but we’re slowing climbing back up in retaining those third-year teachers,” he said. “Overall, from the mentoring data we collected, it has been a positive experience.”  

Carter said the top five vacancies remain in the following categories: 

1. Special education (a total of 378 during the spring of 2026) 

2. Elementary 

3. Science 

4. Math 

5. ELA and literature 

There were 1,588 total vacancies for all educator categories in the spring of 2026, Carter said, down from 1,747 from the fall of 2025. He said a significant reason for the drop in vacancies can be attributed to the numbers of educators that have steadily decreased in the categories titled, “not fully qualified based on endorsement area” and “no applicant” since the fall of 2024. 

Carter said some of the individuals in those categories may have been working in a different capacity, on an emergency substitute license or a waiver.  

“They’re in the process of completing their programs and becoming fully licensed and are serving in our schools now,” he said.