Aimee Epley is a kindergarten teacher at Hillsboro Primary School (photo submitted).
Summertime may almost be over, but for teachers like Audra Day, the work has been nonstop.
Day is a kindergarten teacher at Hillsboro Primary School during the academic year, but has spent her break as a summer school teacher and mentor while also preparing for the upcoming school year.
She said one of the misconceptions about being a teacher is that they have the entire summer off. In reality, Day doesn’t have the opportunity to take much of a break outside of the weeks that bookend summer school activities.
“That’s only for four weeks off, which is what most people get off for vacation,” Day said.
Though she loves her job, Day said it can be frustrating.
Missouri had a total teacher turnover rate of 14.6% during the 2023-24 school year, according to a May 2025 report led by Cameron Anglum, a researcher affiliated with St. Louis University’s PRiME Center. That’s more than double the national average of 7% during the same school year, according to research organization RAND.
Anglum defines total teacher turnover as teachers switching districts within Missouri and teachers leaving Missouri public education altogether. He said both the pandemic and the years following were rough for teachers as online accommodations were limited and the ensuing global inflation made teacher salaries even more dismal by comparison.
“You mix all of those things together, and it was an enormously difficult two- or three-year period for teachers,” Anglum said. “Teaching in general is an enormously difficult profession, but over the pandemic, working conditions worsened pretty significantly.”
The National Education Association ranks Missouri as the 49th state in the nation in both average teacher starting salary and average educator salary, as of the 2023-24 school year. As teacher turnover rates remain high, Anglum said the pressure of filling in the gaps weighs on educators and school districts.
“When schools see an increase in teachers leaving, that places a much larger burden on recruiting new teachers, and we often don’t have the supply of new teachers to fill those vacant positions,” Anglum said.
As issues with teacher retention and recruitment continue, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education and the state legislature have implemented policies to improve teacher pay before classes begin next month.
During the 2024 legislative session, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 727, which requires the minimum salary for teachers to increase from $25,000 to $40,000 for the 2025-26 school year, with a minimum salary of $46,000 for educators with master’s degrees and at least ten years of experience.
“This hopefully will be part of one of several strategies that will help us get more qualified teachers into the field and keep the ones that we have,” said Kari Monsees, former deputy commissioner of the Division of Administrative and Financial Services at DESE, who retired in June.
To facilitate this, lawmakers created and have provided funding for an initiative known as the Teacher Baseline Salary Grant Program. While these grants existed before, the same legislation that implemented higher minimum teacher salaries also created the formal program that will provide school districts paying wages below the minimum with funding to comply with the new state policy.
While the intent is good, some experts said the grant program could cause uncertainty for continued funding in future school years.
Caitlin Whaley is the senior director of advocacy and governmental relations for the Missouri School Boards’ Association. Whaley said that because the grant is subject to annual state appropriations that are not mandated by law, it may not be a reliable funding stream.
“We certainly appreciate that the legislature is willing to put their money where their mouth is and fund that program, but it’s just hard to rely on it year over year, when you don’t know when that funding could potentially not be renewed,” she said.
Rebeka McIntosh, president of the Missouri National Education Association and a former educator, said that increasing the teacher salary and funding certain aspects of education like transportation and the foundation formula is a good first step, but it’s the bare minimum. She said the state also made several cuts and withholdings for educational programs recently.
“Those have direct impact on our public school classrooms, and that is of great concern,” she said. “To say we need to recruit, retain, and then to cut the legs off from underneath … that will then fall again onto districts to find some sort of avenue to have to Scotch tape it together again, and our students deserve better.”
Even more, Todd Fuller, spokesperson for Missouri State Teachers Association, said the increase in minimum salary still leaves Missouri behind its neighboring states, which have also been increasing the minimum salaries for their educators.
“It’s felt like a battle to try to get us to a point where teachers are adequately compensated and we’ve finally gotten to a starting salary of $40,000, [but] the frustrating part of that is when you look at us and all the states bordering Missouri, we’re still last,” Fuller said. “Just as soon as we increase that salary, everybody else has increased their salary, and it keeps us still toward the bottom of starting salaries.”
While organizations like MSTA have been advocating for an increase in the minimum salary, Fuller said the results of an annual survey from the group show that the reason for high teacher turnover rates is not entirely because of pay, though it is a contributing factor for some.
“Salary is not the number one reason that teachers are leaving,” Fuller said. “Teachers are leaving because of discipline issues. They’re leaving because of unrealistic expectations for classroom management, especially when they don’t have backing from the administration.”
As an educator for 30 years, Aimee Epley, a kindergarten teacher at Hillsboro Primary School, feels that those outside of education may not realize the challenges that teachers face in their profession.
“I think they think that we’re glorified babysitters, so they don’t feel that pay is low because they don’t have an understanding of what we actually do,” Epley said. “Once you have somebody come in and observe, people are in awe of how a classroom is handled and ran.”
As rewarding as her career has been, Epley was relieved when her daughter didn’t pursue work in education despite being interested in that vocation.
“I knew she had the heart of a teacher. I was afraid of that, because I didn’t want her to be a teacher, because I didn’t want her to struggle financially in ways I have had to struggle,” Epley said.
Still, Epley remains hopeful for the future of education.
“I think we’re going to be on a struggle bus for a while, and then I think it’ll eventually swing back,” Epley said. “I don’t think there’s a point where we’re not appreciated for the job we do. I [just] don’t think we’re fiscally supported for the job that we do.”
This story originally appeared in Missouri Business Alert, a digital newsroom covering businessand the economy in Missouri.
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