Teachers Were Already Leaving. Where Was the Outrage Then?

MoCo's Voice | Public Accountability Series Updated April 9, 2026 | 11:15 am

There is a conversation happening in Montgomery County right now about teachers leaving. It is loud, it is emotional, and it is being aimed squarely at Dr. Karen Roseboro, who has been superintendent for less than a year.

We have a question. Where was this conversation for the past 14 years?

Because the data, drawn from the district's own federal grant application submitted to the U.S. Department of Education, tells a story that no one in this community was shouting about when Dr. Dale Ellis was in charge.

What the District Told the Federal Government

When Montgomery County Schools applied for federal Teacher and School Leader grant funding, the district submitted a frank self-assessment of its teacher retention crisis to the U.S. Department of Education. These are not outside accusations. This is what the district said about itself, in its own words, to secure federal funding. [1]

The district's own application stated:

• The teacher mobility rate at Montgomery County Schools was 72% higher than the North Carolina state average. Mobility measures teachers who left MCS to go teach at another North Carolina district. They were not leaving the profession. They were leaving Montgomery County specifically to go work somewhere else.

• The teacher attrition rate was 13%, compared to the NC state average of 10.7%. Teachers were leaving public education at an above-average rate as well.

• 17% of MCS teachers were lateral entry, provisionally licensed, or teaching outside their licensed content area, a 39% increase from just one year prior. When experienced, licensed teachers leave, districts are forced to fill those positions with whoever is available.

• 22% of all MCS teachers were rated "Needs Improvement", compared to 15% statewide.

• Students in the district's lowest-performing schools were 81% more likely to be taught by a teacher rated "Needs Improvement" than students in higher-performing schools within the same district.

The children who needed the best teachers were getting the least qualified ones. That was the Montgomery County Schools that Dr. Ellis built over 14 years.

The School That Was Hit Hardest

The crisis was not evenly distributed. At Page Street Elementary, one of the district's lowest-performing schools, 44% of teachers were rated "Needs Improvement" and zero percent were rated Highly Effective. Not one. In a school serving children who needed the most skilled, experienced educators available, the district under Dr. Ellis had produced a teaching staff where nearly half were underperforming, and none were excelling. [1]

These are the conditions Dr. Roseboro was hired to fix.

What the Current Conversation Is Missing

The people now raising alarms about teachers leaving under Dr. Roseboro are making a legitimate point in the abstract: teacher retention matters. They are right about that. But they are applying that standard selectively, and only now, when the superintendent is someone they have chosen to oppose.

Dr. Roseboro has been in this district for less than a year. The crisis documented above unfolded over more than a decade. The teachers who are now speaking publicly about leaving had the option to speak publicly about those conditions for years. The board members who are now demanding answers had the authority to demand those answers long before Dr. Roseboro arrived.

MoCo's Voice is not dismissing the concerns of any teacher who chooses to leave. Every departure is a loss. But the community deserves to know that the standard being applied to Dr. Roseboro today was never applied to her predecessor, and that the conditions she inherited were, by the district's own admission to the federal government, already in crisis.

The Question We Are Asking

Montgomery County Schools submitted a federal grant application that described a district with a teacher mobility rate 72% above the state average, nearly a quarter of its teaching force rated as underperforming, and its most vulnerable students concentrated in the schools with the weakest instructional staff.

That application was submitted under Dr. Ellis's leadership. That was the district he handed over.

So when someone stands up and says that teachers are leaving because of the current superintendent, MoCo's Voice asks: compared to what?

The data is public. The record is clear. And the children of Montgomery County deserve a community that holds every superintendent to the same standard, not just the one who was hired to clean up the mess the last one left behind.

Sources

[1] U.S. Department of Education — Montgomery County Schools Teacher and School Leader (TSL) Grant Application (2023): https://www.ed.gov/sites/ed/files/2024/01/Montgomery-County-Schools.pdf