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UNC system awarded only 4,378 Bachelor's and Master's degrees in education 2014-2015,which <br /> represents 1,315 fewer education graduates than in 2009-2010 (UNC Infocenter, 2016). During that <br /> same year, WCPSS alone lost 1,355 teachers, and the cumulative number of teachers lost among <br /> the 18 districts in the CC RESA was 3,719 during the 2014-15 school year. On average, the teacher <br /> turnover rate was 17 percent for the CC RESA,almost twice as high as the state average (NCDPI, <br /> 2016). The attrition numbers also place a substantial fiscal burden on districts within the region. <br /> By applying the Teacher Turnover Cost Calculator from the National Commission on Teaching <br /> and America's Future (2016) alongside the number of teachers who left,we can estimate that 1 <br /> WCPSS spent$11,856,250 in costs to recruit, hire, process, and train teachers who were lost in the <br /> 2014-15 school year. The total amount estimated to the 18 districts within the CC RESA was <br /> $30,776,250. The mean cost to the districts in the CC RESA is approximately 1.7% of the total <br /> district expenditures,with some districts committing up to 2.5% of their total expenditures to <br /> recruit and retain teachers. Dwindling enrollment in the North Carolina's colleges of education <br /> combined with increasing numbers of teachers leaving the profession require districts to seek <br /> alternative strategies to recruit and retain talented teachers. Creating multiple pathways into <br /> the profession is a critical strategy to address the pipeline shortage. Districts are increasingly <br /> turning to lateral entry teachers to fulfill their teaching needs. The increased number of lateral <br /> entry teacher's raises concern about teacher preparation quality and retention rates of these <br /> teachers. In North Carolina, lateral entry teachers do not perform as well as traditionally <br /> prepared teachers when examining student performance data (Patterson and Bastian, 2014). <br /> When new teachers do arrive in classrooms, many have not experienced the demands of working <br /> in schools and are not familiar with local needs. Lateral entry teachers exit the profession at a <br /> rate 70 percent higher than the overall state attrition rate (NCDPI, 2016). Creating a robust <br /> teacher candidate pool is the most critical issue for the districts within the CC RESA. By <br /> designing and implementing a locally sustainable program for lateral entry teacher support, the <br /> Central Carolina LATP program will provide WCPSS and collegial districts within 2 the CC RESA <br /> opportunities to enhance their own teacher pipelines, increase fiscal efficiency and bolster <br /> lateral entry beginning teacher supports which correlates to increased retention rates. <br /> 67 <br />