By Cheryl Krohn, August 29, 2024
August was always my favorite time of year because as a principal I would welcome educators back into the school building with great hopes and plans for a successful school year in which educators would feel supported, fulfilled, and successful. Yet, it was also a time of great anxiety when sometimes after entering the school doors, educators could make a choice that they no longer wanted to stay in our school—a choice that can be detrimental to school climate and culture, as well as student success.
Now, through the Region 9 Comprehensive Center (R9CC), I help state and local leaders in understanding and addressing educator attrition. According to the Learning Policy Institute (2016), 95% of the demand for teachers is because many leave the profession before retirement due to dissatisfaction with their working conditions. Education leaders must understand and address this dissatisfaction to retain talented educators in classrooms.
As we enter the 2024–25 school year and buildings open to our educators, it will be important for state, district, and school leaders to reflect on their efforts to engage and retain educators during the course of the year. I offer suggestions based on my experience both as a former principal and from providing technical assistance regarding teacher retention in states around the country during the last few years.
Understand trends in your data.
Leaders can collect and dig into data to understand state and local trends regarding measures like educator turnover (educators leaving their schools), pre-retirement, retirement, and attrition (educators leaving the profession). For example, both R9CC states collect and publish annual data: Iowa Condition of Education Report and Illinois Supply and Demand Report. The data provide trends that districts and schools can use as comparison points and help them guide data trends that could be tracked over time at the local level. The data from reports or collection efforts such as these help leaders track or understand the scope of the issue.
Keep a pulse on data and perceptions of educators in your district and schools.
Diagnosing or explaining why you may be seeing certain trends in your data requires engaging educators to understand how they perceive the working conditions or climate of the state, district, and/or school. Methods for doing this can include surveys, focus groups, or interviews. For example, the Center on Great Teachers and Leaders at the American Institutes for Research offers free working conditions resources, and other states and entities (Kansas Teacher Retention Initiative) offer reports and sample questions that other states and districts could adapt for local survey or interview purposes. Hearing directly from the educators you want to retain can happen throughout the school year: Do not just wait to conduct exit surveys as educators decide to leave or retire.
Look beyond traditional engagement methods and staffing models.
Last spring at the Teach to Lead Summit hosted by the U.S. Department of Education, I had the privilege of serving as a critical friend to an Illinois school team of teachers and a principal working together to enrich their school, which recently welcomed many multilingual newcomers. The team worked together to design solutions for supporting all teachers in serving multilingual learners while also establishing a school culture that values multilingual learners. The engagement among the team reminded me of how valuable it can be to have effective, passionate teachers engaged in planning or problem-solving, getting them vested in areas of interest while they remain in the classroom.
Strategic staffing efforts that engage educators in innovative ways are a growing movement in districts and schools across the country. Strategic staffing is an approach to staffing new or existing educators in ways that will meet the needs of students and the school community. It can leverage the talents and strengths of educators—ensuring educators are in the right roles, fostering an environment where both students and teachers can thrive. These efforts are starting to show promising impacts on educator satisfaction and student learning, all centered on reimagining the role, responsibilities, and reach of educators.
What's next?
I hope these suggestions provide inspiration and practical application for states, districts, and schools as they craft and implement plans to retain educators. Consider how you can gather and compare data to state, regional, or similar districts and schools. Additionally, hear from educators the reasons why they stay in your school(s) and learn what would keep them there before they exit. Look beyond traditional staffing models and think about reimagining how to staff educators so they become reengaged and remain in the district, school, and profession.
On behalf of R9CC staff, we wish you a successful start to the new school year and hope your educators and students thrive!
Dr. Cheryl Krohn has more than 16 years of experience developing and leading professional development and coaching opportunities. She worked as an elementary principal and teacher, leading to her experience and interest in supporting leaders in K–12 schools. Krohn supports Regions 9 and 1 and the National Comprehensive Centers in efforts focused on recruiting and retaining teachers and leaders. At the Ohio Department of Education, she supported school leadership efforts alongside principal associations, active K–12 principals, and principal supervisors to strategize improvements to public policy and practice to develop and retain school leaders and teachers. Dr. Krohn holds her PhD in curriculum, teaching, and education policy from Michigan State University and is a senior technical assistance consultant, Educators & Instruction, at the American Institutes for Research®.
Reference
Sutcher, L., Darling-Hammond, L., & Carver-Thomas, D. (2016). A coming crisis in teaching? Teacher supply, demand, and shortages in the U.S. Learning Policy Institute.