Schools Struggle With Teacher Turnover

RALEIGH — As the 2004 school year drew to a close, more than 11,000 North Carolina public schoolteachers packed up their books and cleaned out their classrooms for the last time. While some of them left to teach in other North Carolina schools, most were leaving the public school system for good. Caught between the growing number of veteran teachers who reach retirement age, and the exodus of disillusioned new teachers, schools struggle each fall to plug the holes left by departing staff.