For five years, Michele Fox drove 20 miles from her home in Lewisville to teach the fifth grade at Cash Elementary School in Kernersville.
"I was spending $100 a week in gas. Teachers don't make that much money to begin with, and to spend that much money to go to work was very difficult," Fox said.
When an opening for a sixth-grade math teacher at Meadowlark Middle School became available, Fox put in for a transfer. Meadowlark is only two miles from her home.
"It was a very hard decision. I loved teaching at Cash and really enjoyed my co-workers and (principal) Judy (Jones)," Fox said.
But the move reduced her monthly gas bill by about $200, she said -- not a difficult computation for the math teacher.
"We're only paid once a month, so I will be seeing a very significant savings. It will make each month easier," Fox said.
Dave Fairall, the human-resources director for Winston-Salem Forsyth County schools, said he is not sure how many in-system teacher transfers this year are the result of gas prices, which rose for a while to more than $4 a gallon. The school system does not track why teachers transfer.
The system does, however, evaluate why teachers leave, and this year, 23 teachers said they went to other counties because of high gas prices. There are 3,900 teachers in the system.
"This was the first year we've heard from more than one teacher who was transferring because of gas prices. Fairly early, we started seeing this as a trend in why teachers were leaving,'' Fairall said. "We lost several to Guilford, Davidson and Davie counties. In some instances, teachers took pay cuts to save money overall."
At the school system's central office on Miller Street, some employees are going to four-day, 10-hour workweeks, Fairall said, because of the rising cost of getting to work.
Not all outlying schools in the county have experienced reductions in teacher workforce because of gas prices. Southeast Middle School did not lose any teachers because of gas prices. Piney Grove Elementary lost two classified employees -- employees who don't have to be licensed -- because of distance and gas.
"Sometimes this affects classified staff more because they do not earn as much as the instructional positions," Sandra Sikes, the principal at Piney Grove, said.
Gas prices led Cash Elementary to lose three instructional teachers, Principal Judy Jones said.
"We had one from Guilford County whose baby was in day care in Browns Summit. She couldn't afford to drive to Cash and to keep her child in day care over there, so we lost her," Jones said. "Last spring, we did see an increase in carpooling among employees, especially with those who live on the western side of Forsyth County."
Melanie Reavis teaches first grade at Cash and drives daily from Lewisville. Her husband, the manager of Mercedes-Benz of Winston-Salem, ordered Reavis a Smart Car a year before gas prices started climbing. When the car arrived, Reavis discovered that she could fill it up for $23 and get 40 miles a gallon. Gas for her other car, a station wagon, cost $60 and required weekly fill-ups to make the commute of 25 minutes each way.
"The commute is definitely worth it to me to work at Cash, but now I can go and go, so that makes it easier," Reavis said.
Although more teachers may be leaving or transferring, Tripp Jeffers, the president of Forsyth County Association of Educators, said he believes that high gas prices have had another, larger effect on the profession.
"My perception is that the economy means that we are seeing fewer teachers leaving the profession or retiring early because they can't afford it,'' Jeffers said. "Last summer the system hired more elementary teachers. This year, there weren't as many hires. I think people are staying in their jobs, even if they are transferring to schools closer to their homes."
■ Monica Young can be reached at cyoung9@triad.rr.com.
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