The presented article is aimed at identifying the leading trends characteristic of the processes of professional migration in the educational space of the Russian school. The relevance of this work lies in the fact that the noted trends are revealed during a new (regular) wave of the spread of coronavirus infection. The paper shows that covid-19 significantly intensified the processes of labor migration in the modern Russian school. These processes are analyzed based on data obtained during a sociological survey conducted in August-September of 2021. The intensification of labor migration processes has resulted in the fact that a significant number of teachers who have reached retirement age are leaving school today. Content analysis showed that this is due, firstly, to the concern of this category of teachers for their health, and, secondly, to a weak level of knowledge of modern information technologies, on which distance learning is mainly based. Another revealed trend of professional migration in the educational space of the Russian school in the conditions of the spread of covid-19 was that new teachers come to the place of outgoing teachers of retirement age – pedagogical workers who either do not have a systematic basic pedagogical education in a significant number, because they received it through professional retraining courses, or yesterday's graduates of pedagogical areas of training in the higher education system, due to natural reasons, having no experience in school. The consequences of the identified trends of professional migration for the system of general (school) education in Russia have been analyzed at the end of the work.

This research aims to substantiate the legitimacy of the simultaneous application of two competing sociological paradigms in studying professional (labor) migration of teachers and teacher education graduates, i.e., to use the “strategy of mixing methods”: the mobilities turn and the place attachment. This synthesis-based methodological approach includes micro and macro levels and neo-positivistic and individualistic phenomenology. It was substantiated during a sociological survey in 18 regions of the Russian Federation in August–September 2021. The survey respondents were 3065 teachers and 1132 teacher education graduates, and 255 respondents acted as experts, including six rectors of higher educational institutions of Russia, heads of regional and municipal education authorities (47 persons), and 202 directors of Russian schools. This study has highlighted the unique characteristics of labor migration in the educational space of the Russian school. As empirical research has shown, the reasons for professional migration, in general, and the migration of teachers and teacher education graduates, particularly, are largely similar and stem primarily from material factors. It has also shown that the reasons associated with personal and professional development opportunities should be considered. The identification of ideal factors was made possible by dividing respondents into five groups by criterion of integrating micro- and macro-problems.