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Good morning! It’s Melissa with Chalkbeat Tennessee.

Since late summer, our Memphis reporter Bri Hatch has been digging deep into educator data in Memphis-Shelby County Schools. Bri found Memphis teachers are leaving their jobs at a much higher rate than the overall Tennessee average and have been for years.

Teacher retention is often even worse at the district’s lowest performing schools.

Read more here on the Memphis teacher retention problem (and look up retention data for your school).

MSCS leaders don't collect data on why educators leave their classrooms. But Chalkbeat Tennessee wants to better understand why teachers leave — or what is encouraging them to stay.

If you’re a current or former Memphis teacher, we’d love to hear from you to help better inform our reporting on teacher retention. Click here for the confidential survey, or email us at [email protected].

Local education coverage is disappearing. Chalkbeat helps families and educators understand what’s changing. We can’t do it without you.

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