What Happens If Too Many Teachers Leave School? And What Can Be Done? – 74

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Teacher Departure And famine It is a persistent problem in schools. Nationwide approx. 16% of teachers leave every year – 8% transfer to other schools and another 8% leave the profession altogether. But these averages may mask a deeper staffing crisis in high-poverty schools, where turnover rates are even higher.

Consider Newton High School, located in a major metropolitan area in Texas, where an alarming 39% of teachers left their positions between spring 2020 and fall 2021. The principal hired substitutes, many of whom were new to teaching, and then worked to build trust. and a collective vision among its staff. But before the next school year, 43% of Newton’s teachers resigned, starting the cycle again. The high school lost and replaced 88% of its staff in four years; Only 12% of teachers who started teaching in the 2019-20 school year stayed until 2022-223.

What happens to the school community when large numbers of teachers leave? high turnover negative effects student academic performance, in part due to loss of human capital: When teachers leave, they take their knowledge and skills with them. This is especially damaging to schools where replacements are less experienced, such as high-poverty schools.

Turnover can also erode the social capital (relationships and culture) that holds a school together. We designed a four-year longitudinal study a team of four high schools; explores how staff turnover affects teams working together; what will happen to reform efforts that often take years to bear fruit; and perhaps most importantly, what schools are doing or can do to deal with negative impacts.

Turnover negatively impacts schools. Strong relationships and shared culture are essential if schools are to improve by continually researching and reviewing their practices from year to year. When teachers leave, these bonds are weakened. Teachers are losing close colleagues, making it difficult to collaborate on curriculum or get reliable advice and support. As one teacher in Newton put it, “It’s about rebuilding relationships and then leaving.”

This can prevent teachers from investing in relationships, further accelerate staff turnover, and disrupt teamwork. Teachers waste valuable meeting time trying to agree, which limits their ability to learn from lessons that have been effective in the past and to consider what teaching strategies work and why. One Newton teacher said his team “can’t build anything because we can’t keep people here for more than a year.” “You’re always starting from scratch.”

However, schools can adopt strategies to reduce these harmful effects. One strategy is to track the team’s progress from year to year. For example, at Rivera High School, which has a high turnover of English teachers, well-organized calendars and a common bank of lesson plans have provided educators with the alternative of reinventing the wheel as many times as they have in the past. New teachers can benefit from this resource instead of starting from scratch. This helped them improve teaching and overall student learning experiences.

Another effective strategy is to ensure as much stability as possible in teacher teams. Principals may inadvertently exacerbate the problem by frequently changing teacher assignments. chaos in school. Even a single teacher leaving can have huge ripple effects, eroding the team’s progress from the previous year. The most consistent teams we have observed are able to build on the previous year’s work to reach new heights.

Of course, schools can only do so much to reduce the harmful effects of turnover; This issue also requires action from policymakers. The problems caused by teacher turnover are not evenly distributed among schools: Teacher turnover disproportionately affects schools serving low-income students and children of color. This is a systemic problem that exacerbates and perpetuates inequality between schools. Schools with high turnover rates should receive additional funding to stabilize their teaching and administrative staff. Accountability measures should also be adjusted: policymakers should offer targeted support rather than penalizing schools for turnover-related issues. Additional public transparency on turnover data is needed to reveal the depth of teacher losses. uncertain typically based on reported annual turnover rates.

Our data was collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. increased turnover. In fact, many more schools today are experiencing the high turnover rates that were once typical of high-poverty schools before the pandemic. However, we believe our findings hold even when turnover is less severe because our study shows that the loss of even one or two teachers can have a detrimental effect.

Of course, some change can be good for schools, such as new teachers bringing new perspectives or disgruntled educators leaving. However, we found very few examples of this in our study. Instead, we find that high turnover rates fragment social networks, erode trust, and reduce institutional knowledge. Turnover prevents schools and districts from implementing long-term improvements that inspire hope and optimism in parents, policymakers, and community members. You can’t build a house on turbulent ground. It is time to recognize and address this problem head-on and create stable, thriving learning environments that encourage students and teachers to succeed.

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