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Teachers tell Berkeley County board they are leaving over workload, culture and lack of support
Summary
Multiple current and former Berkeley County teachers urged the board to address teacher retention, citing high turnover, bullying by administrators, excessive workload and inadequate pay; speakers asked for school‑level retention data, principal accountability and a teacher advisory reporting to the board.
Three teachers and former teachers used public comment time at the Nov. 3 board meeting to urge immediate action on teacher retention and school culture.
Amanda Hebel opened public comments with a statistic and an allegation about staff fear of retaliation: “81.3%. That’s the percentage of how many of your constituents, or Doctor Dixon, your employees, are afraid to speak at these meetings,” she said, arguing staff fear retaliation for speaking publicly. Hebel also cited state exit‑survey data showing culture and climate as top reasons teachers make lateral moves.
Sarah Khalil described repeated personal experiences she said drove her out of the district twice, including what she characterized as bullying by a principal and excessive workload during the COVID period. Khalil alleged the board “illegally fired the best superintendent we’d had in more than a decade,” and said district policies made it harder to support some students, including transgender students.
Ashley Figueroa, who said she spent nine years in classrooms (four in Berkeley County), recounted leaving teaching “because the system made it impossible to keep doing the job I love and still have anything left for my own family.” Figueroa asked the board to review retention data at the school level, hold principals accountable where turnover is excessive, prioritize funding that supports classrooms directly, and create a teacher advisory council that reports to the board.
Board members did not provide immediate policy responses from the dais during public comment. Trustees later accepted personnel recommendations that staff presented out of executive session, but did not discuss changes tied directly to the public‑comment requests during the same meeting.
Speakers requested specific district actions — school‑level retention reporting, principal accountability, smaller class sizes and a teacher advisory council — and asked the board to prioritize funding for classroom supports and behavior interventions as ways to reduce turnover.
