Durham has no shortage of entertainment — or empty seats. When someone can’t make it to a show at DPAC or a Durham Bulls game, reselling tickets can be an arduous process some avoid altogether, leaving many unused.

Matt Sears, chief connector of RootEd in Durham Public Schools, wanted to change that. In early March, he launched Tickets for Teachers, an initiative that funnels donated, unwanted tickets to DPS staff. RootEd in DPS is a nonprofit that connects Durham resources with the school system to meet the needs of educators.

“I just thought about the amount of entertainment events that are around, and that surely some of them had empty seats at some point,” Sears said, “And that utilizing those seats for educators would be awesome.”

Anyone can donate unused tickets to educators by transferring them through a ticketing app to the RootEd in DPS email or phone number. 

Despite the name, the initiative isn’t limited to classroom teachers; it’s open to any DPS staff member, including bus drivers, cafeteria workers and social workers. Over 400 employees have already signed up, noting their event preferences through a form accessible via DPS email.

Examples of tickets matched with educators include a Duke Arts production, a concert at Cat’s Cradle in Carrboro and several for the Tony-nominated play Stereophonic, which ran at DPAC from March 17 to 22. 

Instead of a first-come, first-served model, RootEd in DPS uses a randomized selection process based on DPS staff’s event preferences, according to their website.

The randomized process also prioritizes educators who have not yet received tickets during a given school year, the website states, and works to evenly disperse ticket offers across different regions.

Sandy Ridge Elementary School theater arts teacher Emily Gilreath has been teaching in Durham Public Schools for 20 years. After hearing about Tickets for Teachers from her school’s principal in early March, she said signing up through the Google Form was easy.

“And right away, I started getting text messages about tickets that were available for a show at DPAC that was happening that weekend,” Gilreath said.

After getting matched with tickets to Stereophonic, Gilreath said she was very grateful because the show is not something she would normally have room for in her budget.

Josh Paterni, a former Orange County high school English teacher with a child at Durham School of Arts, donated an unused pair of Cat’s Cradle tickets to show appreciation. He often feels guilty wasting tickets and liked RootEd’s solution.

Paterni said that this initiative organizes acts of kindness for educators, and isn’t meant to replace existing advocacy efforts for increased pay and benefits.

“I don’t really expect that a pair of tickets is going to make a huge difference or move the needle,” he said. “But I know that it can be kind of a challenging and demoralizing situation sometimes when the pay just doesn’t match the output, so it seemed like a nice way to say thank you.”

Sears said he thinks the ease of the donation process maximizes the number of tickets RootEd in DPS can match teachers with. Most venues, he said, use electronic systems like Ticketmaster that have simple transfer processes.

The user experience is easy enough, but, right now, Sears runs the ticket matching process manually.

“I send [an educator] an email, they write back, and then I communicate by email and text message when tickets become available,” he said.

Sears said RootEd in DPS is going to put “a lot of time and effort” into automating the process. He also hopes this initiative can grow beyond Durham Public Schools using the automation tool they come up with.

But one user on the Durham SubReddit, r/bullcity, responded to a post Sears made publicizing Tickets for Teachers with criticism:

“Can we just get paid a living wage? Like, I don’t give a shit about going to see Wicked one night when I know I can barely afford food the next week,” the user wrote.

But Sears thinks there’s room for coordinating both worker advocacy and supplementary initiatives. Sears was a teacher at Hillside High School for seven years and said opportunities like this helped provide extra incentive to keep working hard.

“The hope is that this is one of many benefits of working in Durham Public Schools, and that can help retain our high-quality staff,” Sears said.

DPS has consistently seen a high rate of educator turnover in recent years, according to a 2024 report conducted by the North Carolina Department of Instruction. The DPS “LEA attrition rate,” which includes teachers that either left the state or left their respective local education agency, was 21.1% in 2023, exceeding the average rate of 16.8%.

While the report did not cite specific reasons teachers left their jobs, data from across the country has shown a through-line: educators feeling overworked and underpaid.

Paterni said he is very aware of the financial hardship that teachers in DPS and across the state are facing and hopes to see more creative solutions to increase educator pay and benefits. But a community effort to give teachers fun opportunities doesn’t take away from that, he said, especially when many live paycheck-to-paycheck and don’t get as many leisure opportunities.

“I hope that it can help with morale,” Paterni said. “I know that teacher morale is one of the leading reasons why schools suffer and why you see certain schools with high rates of turnover,” he said.

Gilreath attested that attending fun outings supports teacher well-being, and, as a theater teacher, appreciates that the initiative can help give local performers a larger audience.

“It’s one of the quiet things that it’s nice to feel valued, in a way, and so I just think it’s a nice gift,” she said.