On Aug. 19, students put their three months of summer behind them and geared up for the new school year. For half of the English department, it was their first day at McCallum. The start of the 2025-2026 school year marked a new adventure in the McCallum English department with seven new teachers.
There was no single traceable cause as to why this occurred. Often, personal motives were the driving point behind why some teachers decide to move on.
“We know that public education is really designed for a really special person, so we take pride in allowing those people to explore other options when they feel that is that time for them,” assistant principal Gabriel Adame said. “A lot of times, they want to start a family, they want to have time dedicated to raising children, they want to explore career options that they’ve never tried out before.”
When looking at McCallum’s record of low job turnover, this year’s level of turnover could be considered high.
“It is not usual because many people do not leave McCallum,” head of the English department Amy Brodbeck said.
According to Adame, teachers who come to McCallum tend to stay due to the community. Previously, Adame worked for three years at McCallum as a science teacher. After leaving for a year to get his master’s degree at the University of Texas, he was eager to return to McCallum once a spot opened.
“I’m one of those statistics of the people who have been drawn here, have been brought back, and don’t want to go anywhere else,” Adame said. “Our colleagues, our supervisors, the Austin ISD community in general is just a great place to be, grow, and thrive. It’s really the people that inhabit the space that bring us back.”
In addition to the school body itself, new initiatives imposed by McCallum are causing teachers to remain longer. That being said, it can be difficult to retain teachers due to the low-paying wages, a topic that Adame feels passionate about.
“If there’s one problem I will always fight for and stand on, it’s that the United States should give more monetary value to the teaching profession,” Adame said.
Administration at McCallum makes it a priority to obtain quality staff, and looks to be exposed to interested teachers in as many ways as possible, including going to hiring events and making connections with universities.
When considering hiring, administration looks for three main characteristics – qualification, necessary certification to begin work immediately, and some prior experience working with students. According to Adame, the pool of applicants this year was large, but when it boiled down to these standards, the number of candidates dwindled.
“We typically try to find somebody who’s ready to rock, has that training, has that experience because then we feel confident trusting an adult with our most valuable possessions at McCallum – our student body,” Adame said.
While the number of qualified teachers may be limited, there is no lack of available positions. As each school experiences their own turnover, the competition between campuses to attract candidates to fill vacant spots becomes evident. This was clear for new English teacher Alexandria Buzzard, who noted that there were eight schools interviewing for English positions in Austin alone, as well as surrounding districts such as Leander and Del Valle. It was the fine arts academy that set McCallum apart and the interview process that drew her in.
“When you interview for a teacher, it’s pretty much the same everywhere you go,” Buzzard said. “But this was the only one where I felt connected to the interviewers.”
With two years of teaching experience under her belt, Buzzard made the transition to McCallum from Connally High School in Pflugerville ISD, and has already taken on advanced and on-level English II classes. Like Buzzard, many of the new teachers are coming from other districts, and are bringing new initiatives with them to the department.
“I really am excited about this group of teachers we’ve hired,” Brodbeck said. “They’re just coming out, they’re fresh teachers, they’ve got great new ideas.”
With seven of the 14 total English teachers being new, the other seven are returning. This provides each new teacher with a mentor figure to turn to, absorb expertise from, and pathway to learning the ropes of being successful in education. The veteran teachers are inspiring the new ones, and the new teachers are inspiring the returning, indicating a bright future for the McCallum English department.
“There’s always been very strong teachers [in the department],” Brodbeck said. “We lost some and we miss them, but we gained some fantastic additions and I think it’s just going to keep getting stronger.”
