The Temple ISD is implementing a recruitment and retention plan after a large portion of teachers left the district.

While some departing teachers said they were leaving because of "difficult" students, teachers who are staying say the district must train teachers better how to handle troubled students.

“The problem was not the students, it was how things were handled in a different way and the overwhelming need that we have to have better training,” said teacher Hanna Manning, who remains with the district.

Manning says she felt the district is listening to the teachers who have chosen to stay, and admits "there are discipline issues."

Assistant Superintendent of Human Resources Joe Palmer acknowledged the district is facing challenges in keeping teachers.

He says teachers left because many felt they weren’t supported by their superiors.

"The issue is when you send a child that's misbehaving in your class and expect something to happen, you expect something to happen as a teacher. And so our issue was that teachers are feeling that they were sending children but there wasn't action taken," he said.

Palmer detailed some of the problems the district has identified,

"One had to do with student behavior the lack of follow-up (and) secondly it had to do with climate and morale,” he said.

“One of the other things had to do with of course salary and benefits,” he said.

Over the last few years, Palmer says teacher departures have risen to more than 20 percent of the staff.

Teachers Katie Webb and Tatum Giniewicz also remain with the district.

“It takes a special person to teach the students that we have,” Giniewicz said.

Webb, a Temple native and Temple High School graduate, says she hopes changes will be made, "Because it's very important I know to the district and especially to me that we keep really good teacher is here at people are proud to work here."

(Nia Harden contributed to this story)