What To Do About Teacher Turnover

Commonly referred to as teacher turnover, teachers leaving a school is a major concern for administrators, pandemic or not. Hiring a new teacher in an urban district can cost more than $20,000, and above $9,000 in rural districts. New hires are an investment by the school that leaders hope pays off after about two years. Unfortunately, districts lose hundreds of thousands of dollars every year from teacher turnover, leading to less money in the district to go towards student-centered expenses. Retiring teachers is an expected event, and schools can plan their budgeting accordingly, but when newly hired teachers leave, it’s a scramble for schools and districts to reassess funding and close gaps.

Teacher turnover isn’t just hard on school budgets, it impacts student learning and growth as well. As schools scramble to fill an open position, they are substituting teachers with folks that may not be qualified. Moreover, they do not receive the full onboarding process. This is especially true for mid-year hires, leading to class cancellation because the planned teacher is not available. Students miss out, learning is lost, and a new search begins again. Knowing the causes of teacher turnover and adding appropriate solutions greatly improve turnover rates and can help with the recruitment of great teachers in the long run. 

Causes of Teacher Turnover

There are many causes of teacher turnover, no teacher or school could point to just one issue as the direct cause. Through understanding the multiple causes, and acting upon them, school districts can save hundreds of thousands of dollars and improve student engagement and achievement levels by culling that turnover in half.

Teacher Support

New teachers, by job definition alone, are responsible for large classes of students. It’s a sink or swim situation, and survival takes first priority. It’s necessary to build personal classroom and curriculum management on an individual level for teachers, but that shouldn’t leave them defenseless and alone. While schools sometimes provide new teachers with a mentor, those mentor teachers are often swamped and overworked as well, leading to situations where no one has the support, guidance, or fulfillment they need. 

Support may mean many different things to different teachers. It’s a network of services that will grow as more ideas surface. But, it has to start somewhere. Many teachers are working in situations where they don’t feel they have any support at all, causing them to leave the school, or even profession, to get the support they need. 

Teacher Training

In many cases, once a teacher graduates college, targeted professional development (PD) for teaching becomes scarce. They instead become check-the-box activities that are required by the school but aren’t always the most intentional or teacher-driven learning they need specifically for their class or situation. Teachers leave when they realize they’re not being invested in, and in pursuit of learning activities, they recognize other schools that invest in their workforce.

When administrators provide PD or invest in products, tools, or resources for their teachers - it’s often done without teacher input. The mission is sweeping and grand, but as school leaders make decisions, they adhere to opposing views of their own teachers. Thus, it leads to teachers feeling undervalued, overworked, and micromanaged.  If teachers aren't given the personalized PD, they won't have more to offer students.

Teacher Burnout

Stress is at an all-time high, in all professions. With teaching, in particular, burnout is significant. Stress from administrators to improve engagement and student learning, combined with alternating priorities to ‘teach to the test’ takes away from the joys in teaching. Add to that the demands from students' family expectations, and the stress is tremendous by itself. When also considering a teacher’s own personal situations, it can get overwhelming for even the most grounded superhero. When teachers become overwhelmed, it's easy to see how it leads to turnover. 

What can administrators do to retain teachers better?

If administrators want to work on retaining teachers, here are some things that they can address. First, paying teachers is number one. Budgets always come into question, and many decisions are out of their hands, but school leaders should continue to advocate for better educator pay and benefits, not just retirement benefits in the long run. Working on the administrative side of teaching is imperative to retain great teachers. 

Administrators need to incorporate support-building tools and techniques if they want their newly hired teachers to stay. Collaboration is essential for supporting teachers - both within the subject area as well as interdisciplinary mentors. Face-to-face collaboration is important throughout the year, but as schedules differ and priorities change month to month, cloud-based technologies that encourage collaboration directly with the work teachers use daily, like lesson-planning, are essential for a flexible, supportive, innovative education workforce. (See Student Soapbox for more info!)

Administrators should also invest in intentional PD that empowers teachers. Brazen Learning is proud to announce a partnership with Socrates - Head of School, an organization that rethinks what PD really is.  PD is a significant area that can improve and when applied appropriately for their teaching workforce, teachers choose to stay longer. With PD that works to impact and enrich a teacher’s practice, they will grow to become the example new teachers want to be, increasing a school’s recruitment practice as well.

For administrators, it doesn’t take much. It takes a bit of investment in technologies and programs to increase communication and collaboration. Student Soapbox is a tool that closes these gaps and is easily implemented into a school’s learning environment. PD is key to building a workforce with personal skill sets they can improve upon. Finding organizations like Socrates - Head of School can help ask the right questions and tailor the PD to be what teachers need. To get a school’s students to succeed, the people leading them need to be valued and appreciated. Teachers are an understanding bunch, but we can’t take them for granted; else, they won’t stick around.

This piece was created in collaboration with Brazen Learning CEO Girija Ramapriya and Elizabeth Eason Martin, of Applied EQ and consulted with the team at Socrates - Head of School.