"This is the time of year where districts have to go through and look at all the employees that are on contract and decide if they are going to carry over and give them a new contract or if they are going to non-renewal them," education professor Duncan Klussman said.
This week, Klein, Hitchcock, and Houston ISD are all having some form of those conversations.
On the Klein ISD agenda Monday night are several teacher contracts for nonrenewal. The district said this is an example of a standard end-of-year procedure.
Meanwhile, in Hitchcock ISD, they made a deliberate reduction in their workforce over the weekend, citing financial strains.
Klussman said many districts are expecting financial impacts, partly due to the state's new school voucher program that kicks off in the fall.
"Districts are struggling financially because the state put a billion dollars in private schools, but did not put enough money into public schools to keep up with inflation," Klussmand said.
Hitchcock Superintendent Darryl Henson said they are trying to address a $1.5 million budget deficit. By cutting eight teachers, Henson said the district will save half a million dollars. The district is also planning additional cuts to the central office, athletics, and maintenance and operations.
Houston ISD is cutting an unknown number of uncertified teachers. The Houston Federation of Teachers union said in 2025, around a quarter of teachers in the district were not certified. With a lack of certified teachers to fill openings, union president Jackie Anderson worried that more uncertified teachers will take their place.
"This is just a turn-and-burn that the district is doing. And we have some people that we talked to that said they had no intention of being certified," Anderson said.
Anderson said an uncertified teacher has two years to gain their certification.
Klussman told ABC13 that, without enough certified teachers to fill open positions, this churn will likely continue in more districts than just HISD.
"The teaching profession has been a hard profession to be in. There's a lot of scrutiny that teachers are under right now, so I just think that it's a very difficult situation, and you're seeing less people want to go into the field," Klussman said.
With the lingering impacts from the pandemic and heightened scrutiny of public education, it may be upwards of five years before we see the intensity of teacher turnover even out, according to Klussman.