![\"Kael](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/YC3YEY6NDBAKDL2NG5RBPFSY6U.webp\")
Kael Welch at The Open Book, a nonprofit bookstore in Kearney she opened with friends in 2025. Welch left her job as an elementary school teacher in 2012 to homeschool her kids.(Courtesy Photo)<\/p>\nLINCOLN, Neb. (Flatwater Free Press) -Ella Ricker was sitting in her elementary school orchestra class when she first considered a career in teaching. Her orchestra teachers at Lincoln Public Schools made learning to play music so fun, she wanted to share that joy with others. <\/p>\n
As a teacher, Ricker said, seeing her students excited to play their instruments and perform in school concerts was her favorite part of the job. But it was also only one part of a growing list of responsibilities in a profession in which she said a good work-life balance had become unattainable.<\/p>\n
So, after nine years with LPS and 14 years into her career, Ricker left the profession last May \u2014 she would have to rely on income from pet-sitting until she could find something else. But a year later, she now watches people\u2019s pets for a living, sometimes earning more than she did as a teacher, she said.<\/p>\n
Ricker\u2019s decision to quit teaching is an increasingly common one in Nebraska. <\/p>\n
As of May 15, only 27,840 of the nearly 45,500 Nebraskans licensed to teach here have actually worked as teachers in the state this school year, according to a Flatwater Free Press analysis of state Department of Education data. <\/p>\n
That means roughly 40% of certified Nebraska teachers aren\u2019t teaching in public or private classrooms this academic year. <\/p>\n
That number includes the normal churn, like retirements and teachers moving out of state or up into administrative roles, the department said. But it also includes many like Ricker \u2014 teachers who have exited the profession.<\/p>\n
The Flatwater Free Press spoke with 13 former teachers who have left teaching. Many cited unsustainable, high-stress work environments with frequent expectations for unpaid labor and limited schedule flexibility. They noted shrinking student attention spans, additional learning requirements and feeling unsupported by parents or school leaders. <\/p>\n
The teachers who spoke to Flatwater have retired early or left teaching for a range of careers in higher education, business, therapy, self-employment, healthcare and\/or nonprofit work. Most said they would not return to the profession or would need to see major changes before doing so.<\/p>\n
\u201cTeaching is a relatively high-quit, turnover line of work,\u201d said Richard Ingersoll, a former high school teacher himself who is now a professor of education and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe conventional wisdom is long that we have these shortages, that we don\u2019t produce enough people \u2026 and then you look at the data and you find that, well, there\u2019s actually a whole lot of people out there,\u201d Ingersoll said. \u201cThe problem isn\u2019t so much that we don\u2019t produce enough (teachers), it\u2019s that we lose too many.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe issue is, well, can we keep them in the first place? But also, what does it take to get them to come back in?\u201d<\/p>\n
Kael Welch at The Open Book, a nonprofit bookstore in Kearney she opened with friends in 2025. Welch left her job as an elementary school teacher in 2012 to homeschool her kids.(Courtesy Photo)<\/p>\n
Ricker\u2019s story mirrors others\u2019 who say they had little choice but to leave the field. She frequently had to stay past school hours to attend mandatory meetings and trainings, she told Flatwater, without acknowledgment in her paycheck or from administrators for the extra time. That lack of recognition and support, she said, coupled with years of rising work demands, led her to quit after the 2025 school year.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year I was teaching, they kept putting on more and more, like, things that we needed to do, more requirements we needed to meet,\u201d Ricker said. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t have any more time to do them.\u201d<\/p>\n
She knows other teachers who have left after feeling similarly burnt out. Many, she thinks, were dedicated educators who would worry about their students after school, then spend their evenings preparing for the next day\u2019s classes. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut there\u2019s nothing to show for it at the end of the day, you know?\u201d Ricker said. <\/p>\n
***Nebraska\u2019s teacher shortage has shown improvement, the state reported in its most recent teacher vacancy survey<\/a>. Unfilled positions, classified as any left vacant or filled by someone other than a fully qualified teacher, dropped by around 669 to 489 from last school year to this year \u2014 a marked improvement from the over 900 reported in the 2023-2024 school year. The number of fully vacant positions has also decreased annually since.<\/p>\n Teacher vacancies by county.<\/a><\/p>\n But these survey reports can be imperfect indicators of how the state is actually trending, said Tim Royers, president of the state teachers union, the Nebraska State Education Association. He said the surveys are structured around posted positions that go unfilled. <\/p>\n \u201cBut I know that there\u2019s districts across the state that have simply not posted a position because they know they won\u2019t fill it, right?\u201d Royers said. \u201cSo that doesn\u2019t show up on that report.\u201d<\/p>\n The problem is a national one. A 2025 survey from researchers at the University of Missouri<\/a> found that 78% of teachers surveyed have considered or plan to leave teaching since the 2020 pandemic. Ingersoll said the profession has become more taxing as the demands on teachers have increased. \u201cBut, the time, the resources, the tools, the autonomy to meet the demands\u201d haven\u2019t. Teachers, he said, rarely get a say into the key decisions that impact their job.<\/p>\n Josh West, who taught math for seven years at Lincoln and Elkhorn Public Schools, said teaching became notably less enjoyable after the pandemic. Fewer students seemed to apply themselves, he said, and there was little support from the district to hold students accountable for their own progress in school. <\/p>\n He constantly worried over his students\u2019 success, to the point where it wore on his mental health. He felt he was failing as an educator.<\/p>\n \u201cI felt like I wasn\u2019t making much of a difference,\u201d West said. \u201cIt was making me anxious. I was not happy. I was emotionally exhausted at the end of every day.\u201d<\/p>\n After the 2023 school year, West quit teaching with no backup plan. It was a big risk, he said, and it wasn\u2019t easy to leave the job for which he\u2019d obtained a degree or his position as a track and cross-country coach.<\/p>\n \u201cYou feel like you\u2019ve gave up almost a decade of your life at that point,\u201d West said. \u201cYou\u2019ve put in all these years, and you\u2019re almost starting from scratch again. And it was a scary feeling, not knowing for sure where I\u2019d even be working.\u201d<\/p>\n The hardest part for West: The feeling that he was giving up on his students. Those relationships are what he misses most about teaching, he said. Everything else made it easy to leave \u2014 the pressures from parents and principals, the feeling of running on empty with little time for life beyond work.<\/p>\n West eventually found a job with the state Department of Health and Human Services, where he took a small pay cut. He said it was worth it. Now, West works as an analyst for an insurance company, making more money than he ever did as a teacher, he said.<\/p>\n Teachers will leave the profession with no guarantee of a raise, with many taking a pay cut, said Gema Zamarro, a professor in education reform and economics at the University of Arkansas. They will sacrifice pay for a chance at a more manageable job, she said.<\/p>\n After the 2024 school year, Kate Geiger left her job as a special education teacher at a public elementary school in Omaha for an office manager position at an engineering firm. She also works at an Omaha yoga studio, something she has done since she began teaching.<\/p>\n The career change has improved her schedule, mental health and salary. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never cried at work,\u201d she said. \u201cI get lunch every single day if I want it.\u201d<\/p>\n She recalls a moment in teaching where she wondered if she would have the time to attend a family member\u2019s funeral. \u201cThat\u2019s silly, right? But it was just, I mean, it was so hard to be able to do that stuff,\u201d she said, especially when many students relied on her for individualized support. <\/p>\n People don\u2019t realize the extent to which teachers\u2019 workloads have grown in the last decade, said Kathy Poehling, the president of the Omaha Education Association, a local affiliate of the state teachers union. There is greater stress on teachers, she said, especially those in special education. They have more paperwork and complex regulations to navigate.<\/p>\n Geiger agrees the job changed in her eight years as a special education teacher. She said she loved her school and, for the majority of her career, enjoyed going to work. But her last year of teaching was so stressful, she said, that she was literally ripping strands of hair from her head.<\/p>\n \u201cI struggled moving out of education because I really felt like I was making a difference in the world,\u201d Geiger said. \u201cBut I was just like, I think, at my breaking point.\u201d<\/p>\n Special education jobs continue to be the most difficult for schools to fill, topping the list for unfilled teacher positions reported by the state since at least 2009. Other specialized areas, including foreign language, music and advanced math and science, trend high on that list \u2014 industries that seek these skills tend to offer more competitive pay and benefits than teaching.<\/p>\n Many of the teachers with whom Flatwater spoke said they didn\u2019t pursue the job for the pay, but cited money as another factor in their decision to leave. <\/p>\n![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SCMF3CTY3RCOPD7YY2RBKQCZ54.webp\")
Kate Geiger, a former special education teacher, teaches a yoga class at Lotus House of Yoga.(Lily Smith, Flatwater Free Press)<\/p>\n![\"Unfilled](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Y5RAS23HPJCM5ID6U4OSC444KM.png\")
Unfilled teacher positions by subject, 2025-26(Made with Flourish)<\/p>\n
![\"Sisters](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ATHAKDYHAFFSHJZJQEHLY24TFY.webp\")
Sisters and former teachers Erin Lane (left) and Kael Welch at The Open Book, a nonprofit bookstore in Kearney where Welch now works.(Courtesy Photo)<\/p>\n