PLCs can be a powerful lever for collaborative professional learning IF they are implemented with intention and fidelity.

We’ve supported our EIR grant partners to reconfigure how their PLCs operate — from a compliance and administrative orientation to providing opportunities for invigorating professional work. As one NTC program lead observed: “When they realized what a PLC could be, they were eager to make the shifts.”

We’ve all seen the headlines — our schools are understaffed, and enrollment in teacher prep programs is down. Public perceptions about our education system and the narrative about teachers and teaching can only be described as depressing. In short, the teaching profession is in trouble.

While what to do about it is being debated in state houses, think tanks, and prep programs across the country, at New Teacher Center, we believe the future of teaching depends on a reinvigorated vision for teacher mentoring. In the short term, mentoring is a critical bridge for teachers entering the profession right now through diverse and non-traditional pathways. It also needs to be integral to the design of longer-term efforts to reshape what teacher preparation, induction, and professional learning and collaboration look like.

Twenty-five years ago, NTC came into being because Ellen Moir and her colleagues said, and the field agreed: We can’t accept the teacher turnover problem — the loss of all that talent, the harm it does to teachers and the kids they serve. Instead of feeling isolated and ill-prepared, we need to ensure that every new teacher has the opportunity to collaborate with a quality mentor. To improve retention and teacher effectiveness, induction should be normalized, formalized, and grounded in the best research on how new teachers learn to teach.

In defining what this could and should look like, we spelled out three things:

• the nature of the relationship between mentor and mentee (highly personalized, trusting, power-neutral, teacher-led)
• the focus of mentoring interactions (a job-embedded teaching and coaching cycle to guide instructional conversations)
• the concrete details of the induction infrastructure (trained mentors, a prescription for the frequency and duration of support, meaningful school leader engagement)

These fundamentals are still foundational as we consider a new vision for mentoring based on the talents and needs of our potential new teachers. While the next generation of educators is still driven by the same sense of purpose, they come from widely varied preparation experiences. They also have different expectations for their careers. They want a job where they have opportunities for advancement. They are not interested in entering a profession that people talk about in terms of survival idioms — make or break, sink or swim — and where it feels difficult to make a difference. They have other options.

Our job, then, is to help think about what we can do differently to make our schools places where teachers (and their students) want to be and where they can flourish. It is within our sphere of influence.

NTC is looking at the future of mentoring as the key to a revitalized teaching profession built for the long haul. We are talking to all our partners, conducting empathy interviews with new teachers and teacher advocates, looking at the research, and watching with deep interest the exciting movement in talent development strategies — in apprenticeships, for example, and school staffing and team teaching models. In all of this work, we know that mentors will serve in lynchpin positions in support of new teachers coming through myriad pathways to serve a wide range of school communities.

As we face whatever the future is going to bring to the field of education, if we are going to invest in one sure thing, we believe it should be a quality mentoring experience for every new teacher. In the coming months, NTC will be convening educators, organizations, and researchers to talk about the role mentors can and should play in the transitional spaces within and between teacher preparation and in-service induction. If we want to expand the pipeline, we also have to ensure that the pathways to the classroom offer the quality of support that aspiring teachers and their future students deserve. We need everyone’s best thinking as we talk about how mentoring can make the difference for the generations to come. It’s critical for the profession and for the future of our schools. Join us.

NTC designed tailored pre-service professional learning and mentor training to support aspiring teachers in M-DCPS’s Grow Your Own (GYO) pathways, aligning with the district’s vision for teacher recruitment, retention, and development.

Our partnership with M-DCPS recently focused on enhancing district teacher recruitment efforts through custom professional learning for candidates in its Clerical to Teach (C2T) and Paraprofessional to Teach (P2T) programs. These initiatives provide pathways to full teacher certification for eligible staff, offering comprehensive support and the necessary resources to prepare candidates for the Florida Teacher Certification Exam.

Participants in the programs already play a crucial role in students’ lives, serving as vital liaisons in the classroom and between the school, families and caregivers, and the community. The C2T and P2T programs aim to strengthen the workforce by leveraging candidates’ deep community knowledge and school-based experience.

NTC developed targeted pre-service professional learning and mentoring to support aspiring GYO teachers’ transitions to new roles in the classroom.

New Teacher Center (NTC) began its collaborative partnership with HIDOE over a decade ago to establish one of six “new teacher centers” in some of the largest districts in the United States. This work started with a partnership with the University of Hawai’i to provide professional learning for mentors of new emergency-hire special education teachers.

Over the next few years, NTC provided programmatic consultation, conducting focus groups across the state to assess existing induction practices.

The state’s induction program is now viewed by Hawai’i’s education leadership as the “heartbeat of the department.” NTC has supported the growth of a state induction program that reflects NTC’s induction model’s key principles and components.

This webinar, presented in partnership with Results for America and Grant Wood Area Education Agency (GWAEA), highlights how to build effective, sustained, and well-supported induction programs. As part of GWAEA’s induction programming, new teachers in participating school districts receive two years of job-embedded professional development. At the core of these supports are induction coaches, who guide beginning teachers in improving their practice. These coaches, who are identified through a rigorous selection process, receive intensive training and coaching to ensure they can effectively support new teachers. Presenters make a case for what drives induction programming success, the critical importance of diverse stakeholder collaboration for buy-in and efficacy, and how to design program evaluation that yields evidence that supports continuous improvement while demonstrating the program’s credibility.

Key takeaways included:

Induction supports multiple benefits, some less visible.

• Supporting new teachers in evidence-based practices that build optimal learning environments is crucial for enhancing student outcomes and experiences.
• Nurturing teachers’ sense of success through job-embedded coaching and collaboration accelerates development, fosters persistence, and creates meaning…all key indicators that lead to improved teacher retention.
• Targeted professional development for beginning teachers is a strong recruitment strategy. It supports higher-quality talent pipelines while creating a supportive instructional culture.

Stakeholder engagement is imperative for long-term success.

• Treating school principals as true partners by involving them in joint program design efforts and aligning induction programs with school goals enhances support for new teachers and promotes program sustainability.
• Understanding district priorities and challenges while providing regular data updates, relevant learning, and voiceovers of program impact ensures district-level buy-in and sustainability.
• Establishing a multi-stakeholder steering committee with diverse representation fosters collective decision-making and ensures program alignment.

Collaboration is a cornerstone of setting instructional culture for new teachers.

• Intentional communication structures, such as triad conversations between principals, instructional coaches, induction coaches, and new teachers, do more than get everyone on the same page and demonstrate the level of investment in new teachers. These interactions facilitate alignment, continuous improvement, and support rooted in concrete growth and development goals.
• Bringing together the valued perspectives of new teachers and students (alongside other stakeholders) creates a collaborative mindset around how an engaged community is self-assessing and self-shaping program improvements.

Evidence is a foundational lever to collect support.

• A multi-pronged approach to program evaluation blends together multiple data points. Reach and implementation data (quantitative data, such as the number of teachers, coaching time, observations, etc.) helps assess program fidelity and implementation. Impact Data — the “so what” data — combines qualitative and quantitative measures to showcase the program’s influence on mentor/coach and new teacher practices, enabling ongoing reflection and adjustment of program actions. Student outcomes data draws direct lines between program impact and improved student outcomes, telling the complete story of student learning experiences in real-time alongside teacher development.
• Be practical in establishing an evaluation plan, first by clarifying program outcomes and intentions to determine what implementation, impact, and tangible non-survey data will provide readily actionable insights.

Speakers:

• Kimberly Owen, Regional Administrator, Grant Woods Area Education Agency
• Anna Selk, Associate Superintendent, Benton Community School District
• Ellen Hur, Vice President of Solutions, Results for America
• Ross Tilchen, Director of Economic Mobility, Results for America
• Ann Wenzel, Vice President of Program & Partnerships, New Teacher Center
• Jennifer Iacovino, Director of Program and Partnerships, New Teacher Center

^{1 Results for America Case Study
2 Webinar Research Round-up}

The principal plays a pivotal role in teacher induction, serving as a key leader in fostering a supportive environment for new educators. Effective principals actively engage in the induction process by promoting a culture of collaboration, setting clear expectations, and providing ongoing support to ensure that new teachers feel welcomed and empowered. They facilitate meaningful connections between mentors and mentees, helping to establish strong professional relationships that enhance instructional practices. By prioritizing teacher induction, principals not only support the retention and growth of new educators but also contribute to improved student outcomes and a positive school culture.

New Teacher Center’s long-time partner Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) has always been an innovator. We are more than excited to support M-DCPS’s multi-faceted Grow Your Own (GYO) teacher pathways programming as part of our ongoing collaboration to engage and support aspiring and beginning teachers, and the students they serve.

In summer 2022, with their office phones often ringing in the background, this year’s cohort of aspiring educators participating in Miami-Dade County Public School’s (M-DCPS) Clerical to Teach (C2T) and Paraprofessional to Teach (P2T) programs took their next big steps toward becoming teachers. During a custom pre-service learning experience designed and facilitated by NTC program consultants Taryn Glynn and Jeanna Hawkins, these seasoned school professionals, some of whom have worked in the district for decades, came together to take their rich experience serving students, families, and the local and school community to the next level.

Over the course of an intensive week, participants examined the three domains of optimal learning. (This framework, which is grounded in the science of learning and development, provides a schema, concepts, and language to talk about classroom conditions that reflect what we know about how students learn best.) Participants identified the critical importance of knowing students and building authentic, healthy relationships as the foundation for learning. And the cohort enthusiastically embraced new learning about standards, subject-area content, and instructional practice, eager for more.

“They were such a joyful and engaged group, and the community aspect of the training was particularly empowering,” said Taryn and Jeanna. “Their understanding of the learning environment from their current jobs allowed them to quickly make deep contextual connections with the content provided in the session. In addition, because they have worked within the dynamics of the school system and come from the same professional backgrounds, the training was a safe space for learning that supported confidence building — participants came together in community as ‘non-instructional staff’ to support each other in building their identities as educators.”

Throughout the coming year, candidates will receive ongoing support from NTC-guided “buddy teachers” as they continue preparing for certification (and continue to serve in their current jobs). Once they are hired as “teachers of record,” C2T and P2T teachers will access three more years of aligned support through the district’s comprehensive induction program for all beginning teachers.

The C2T and P2T programs are part of a suite of grow your own educator pathways M-DCPS initiated several years ago to increase teacher retention and address staffing shortages. These two programs were designed to engage current district employees who have rich community knowledge and experience working with families and students as potential educators. The goal is to capitalize on the assets and expertise they bring to their new roles in the classroom.

Identifying GYO participants as ”pre-service” teachers was intentional, said Stephanie Garcia-Fields, NTC senior program consultant. Aspiring educators taking alternative routes to teaching often miss the typical supervised clinical experience that traditionally trained teacher candidates are required to complete. She also emphasized that designing a custom pre-service offering aligned with their experience and needs was critical. “The first step we took was to sit down with the program leaders to see what participants would need specifically based on the work they are already doing and the strengths they will bring to their roles,” Stephanie said. “This is something we want them to realize, that the knowledge they bring as an experienced member of the school community is going to translate into a strength in the classroom. We want to highlight and build on the skills and contacts and touchpoints and knowledge they already have that perhaps a regularly trained classroom teacher might not. [It] helps to build confidence and identity as an educator, which is important for retention, efficacy, and, of course, the student experience.”

These teacher candidates already play an essential role in students’ lives. They serve as vital liaisons between the school, caregivers, and the community. Non-instructional staff have deep knowledge of students from day-to-day interactions in the front office, including historical information, home dynamics, and knowledge about attendance and academic strengths and needs. Participants who have served as paraprofessionals can also bring practical experience with classroom management, instructional strategies, IEP implementation, early/child development, parental/caregiver engagement, and learning differences to the job.

In addition to C2T and P2T, NTC is also supporting another ongoing district GYO initiative called the Temporary Instructor Preparation and Support program (TIPS). TIPS is designed to recruit college students to explore teaching as a career while serving as temporary instructors in long-term substitute positions. Three more GYO pathways in development are being created specifically to recruit more men of color currently serving in security and custodial roles. Another emerging effort targets M-DCPS high school students through the Florida Future Educators of America pathway called Project REDI (Recruiting, Empowering, and Developing Inclusive Male Teachers of Color).

Stephanie highlighted M-DCPS’s willingness to experiment within an aligned and coherent vision for teacher development as particularly powerful. This has been true, she said, ever since NTC first partnered with M-DCPS to build its comprehensive Mentoring and Induction for New Teachers program over a decade ago. “That alignment is really important to Miami,” she said. “It’s their goal that everybody gets equal access to high quality pre-service experiences, no matter what pathway brings them to the classroom.”

“Our Grow Your Own pathways are deliberately crafted with support structures.”

— Kristin Trompeter, M-DCPS Executive Director, New Teacher Support, Office of Professional Learning and Career Development

Kristen Trompeter, M-DCPS’s executive director of new teacher support, shared a reflection on the intention and design of GYO for the district. “Recently, Miami-Dade County Public Schools (M-DCPS) shifted so that our division of professional development now includes a focus on career enhancement, establishing the Office of Professional Learning and Career Development. From students in our schools to individuals newly relocated to South Florida who have only dreamed about working in education, we want potential hires to know that they can have a full career with M-DCPS, their employer of choice. Our Grow Your Own pathways are deliberately crafted with support structures. These plans encourage strategic partnerships, like the one M-DCPS has with the New Teacher Center, to ensure that participants in these pathways are provided with current and expert knowledge and skill sets that will lead to not only their success, but also to that of our students.”

A key priority for M-DCPS, said Stephanie, “is not just filling seats, but getting the people our kids need into the classroom … recruiting staff who come from the community, who really care about teaching and learning, and then supporting them to grow into their roles as educators.”

M-DCPS At-a-Glance

Over the last 10+ years, New Teacher Center and Miami-Dade County Public Schools have partnered on several major federal grants to implement and refine the district’s vision for a coherent teacher professional growth and development program. A current focus of the partnership is integrating support for potential teacher candidates coming through alternative pathways.

M-DCPS is the 4th largest school district in the U.S.: 392 schools, 345,000 students, and over 40,000 employees, covering over 2,000 square miles and serving communities ranging from rural and suburban, to urban cities and municipalities. Students in M-DCPS speak 56 different languages and represent 160 countries.

With a lot of people coming and going from the continental United States, a significant military presence, and a high cost of living, teacher turnover has long plagued Hawai’i schools. While nationally nearly half of new teachers leave the classroom in the first five years, Hawai’i was losing them in just three. Determined to stem the tide, state leaders implemented a robust induction program based on NTC’s research-based model. Hawai’i’s bold investment is now a beacon for states facing similar challenges.

We spoke with Keri Shimomoto and Kristen Brummel, educational specialists with the Hawai’i Teacher Induction Center, about the evolution of the state’s program and the key components that contribute to both its stability and coherence and its ability to remain dynamic, responsive, and reflective of the rich cultural context of Hawai’i.

After serving as an induction coordinator and mentor in the Honolulu District since 2001, Keri Shimomoto was asked to spearhead a comprehensive statewide induction and mentoring effort for the Hawai’i State Department of Education (HIDOE) in 2010 and has helped lead the state’s induction programming ever since. Kristen Brummel credits a new teacher course led by Keri early in her teaching career as life-changing. After being named Hawai’i State Teacher of the Year in 2011, she became a mentor herself. Kristen has also served as an induction program coordinator at the local level before joining the Hawai’i Teacher Induction Center last year.

When Keri first started doing this work, she recalled that a few induction programs existed, but new teacher support was not universally available. Her first formal mentor training came through a department partnership with the University of Hawai’i to support new emergency-hire special education teachers. New Teacher Center (NTC) provided the professional learning for participating mentors, which Keri described as “some of the best professional development I experienced as a teacher.” She said the experience helped her and her colleagues to “level up” their shared vision for quality mentoring as the cornerstone of teacher induction.

Over the next few years, NTC also provided programmatic consultation, conducting focus groups across the state to assess existing induction practices. “We found there were pockets of really good support for new teachers here and there, but there was a real need for consistency,” Keri said. Based on NTC’s recommendations for building a more coherent, statewide approach, the department began applying for grants and conducting small pilots. Eventually, the state spelled out its vision for new teacher support in a successful federal Race to the Top grant application, and in 2011, opened New Teacher Center Hawai’i. “We wanted to go for the gold standard,” Keri said, “to use the New Teacher Center’s model and contextualize it for our state.”

Those early years marked the beginning of a rich partnership that has fostered the growth of a state induction program now seen by Hawai’i’s education leadership as the “heartbeat of the department.” Hallmarks of this exemplary state model include stable infrastructure and funding, the guiding ethos of Nā Hopena A‘o, and an active commitment to sustain relevant, responsive, and continuously improving teacher support.

Hawai’i Teacher Induction Center team

Policy and infrastructure that says Hawai’i is serious about induction

New teachers in Hawai’i receive two years of intensive mentoring with ongoing new teacher-focused professional learning options through year three (and up to year five). This level of support is the result of policy initiatives, permanently funded induction positions to ensure comprehensive training for mentors at every level of the system, and local guidance and expectations for new teacher support programs that are spelled out in the Hawai’i Teacher Induction Program Standards.

Formalizing and institutionalizing high-quality induction as a state priority involved advocating with the Board of Education and the Hawai’i State Teachers Association. Keri said the resulting policy was critical: “We are able to say ‘We want to help teachers to get better, faster. It’s going to be better for your students, and we want to retain teachers. Also, it’s board policy, so it is an expectation, and we have the support of the teacher union to do this work.’”

Another critical piece was funding. “One of our goals,” Keri continued, “was to build a permanent induction system for beginning teachers. The only way to do that was to make sure we had permanent public funding for it, so we didn’t have to keep relying on grants and chasing after funds. It took some time to establish our existing office, but now there are 10 of us in positions that are publicly, permanently funded by the legislature and the governor. Teacher induction is in our general budget. That was a huge step.”

These state-level funded positions include two full-release special education mentors and five induction “state office teachers” responsible for working with local induction staff. Every superintendent of Hawai’i’s 15 “complex areas” (how the state refers to geographical districts) must designate an induction program coordinator who meets regularly with state staff. These coordinators also participate in Hawai’i’s Professional Learning Network (modeled on NTC’s National Program Leader Network) for quarterly professional learning designed to build induction leadership capacity. Local coordinators manage their complex area programs, including designing and facilitating professional learning for mentors serving in schools as well as for beginning teachers. “We felt it was really important to centralize and standardize the mentor training following the NTC model because we wanted to make sure that we were providing rigorous mentoring focused on improving instruction for all students, not just ‘buddy’ mentoring,” Keri said.

To sustain a high level of consistency, according to NTC program lead Vera-Lisa Roberts, state and local staff continue to participate in ongoing mentor training. They also continue to mentor at least one beginning teacher to keep their mentoring skills and perspectives fresh.

Another key piece of the program is the length and intentionality of the support for new teachers. The state coordinates beginning teacher summer academies and quarterly new teacher professional learning communities (PLCs) that are facilitated in each complex area. This is in addition to two years of intensive support paired with a trained mentor and engaging in 180 minutes of mentoring interactions a month. After the two years, some principals may request that teachers continue mentoring for a third year or teachers can request the support themselves. Otherwise, new teachers participate in specialized professional learning in years three, four, and sometimes, five. “We know that we still can lose teachers after that second year, third year, even fourth year, so we’ve created an extended system of support for those teachers once they no longer work so closely with their mentor,” said Keri.

The state also offers PLCs specifically for new teachers in years 2-4 led by veteran teacher leaders. According to Kristen, this is designed to leverage the expertise of exceptional teachers to share effective instructional practices with beginning teachers. “When teachers lead professional learning, they create a ripple effect. Their expertise inspires new teachers, ultimately benefiting all students. It creates a model of leadership that inspires new teachers to follow in those footsteps and become leaders themselves,” she said.

PLCs also provide opportunities for new teachers to collaborate with peers, an important working condition that research says improves job satisfaction and teacher retention. As a professional learning model, staff report that PLCs allow them to provide ongoing professional learning while staying flexible and adapting to how teachers want to engage. Kristen adds: “Building a network is crucial for new teachers. It fosters the understanding that resources and support can come from a diverse range of people and places. Additionally, collaborating with colleagues facing similar challenges provides invaluable guidance and camaraderie.”

Nā Hopena A‘o or HĀ

A more recent area of focus — and defining characteristic of Hawai’i’s induction approach — is captured in the HIDOEʻs Nā Hopena A‘o or HĀ. According to the state’s website, HĀ is a “department-wide framework to develop the skills, behaviors, and dispositions that are reminiscent of Hawaiʻi’s unique context and to honor the qualities and values of the indigenous language and culture of Hawaiʻi. The outcomes include a sense of Belonging, Responsibility, Excellence, Aloha, Total Wellbeing and Hawai‘i, that, when taken together, become the core BREATH that can be drawn on for strength and stability throughout school and beyond.”

NTC Program Consultant Vera-Lisa had a lot to say about the alignment of HĀ and NTC’s relational, student-centered approach to creating optimal learning environments. “There are so many connections to the science and optimal learning environments. It also reflects how we co-design with our partners. Across very different islands, it’s a very similar vision, everyone is working towards one goal.”

Keri agreed: “These are Hawaiian values that I’ve always felt really align well with NTC’s core values. NTC’s work with teachers and students always starts from a place of competence. Getting to know and honoring everyone’s gifts and building from there.”

“These are Hawaiian values that I’ve always felt really align well with NTC’s core values. NTC’s work with teachers and students always starts from a place of competence. Getting to know and honoring everyone’s gifts and building from there.”

And because so many teachers come to Hawai’i from the continental United States, the cultural aspect of induction that HĀ brings is essential to set new teachers up for success to create authentic relationships with students, families, and colleagues. “These are values that are important in the communities,” Vera-Lisa added. “Teachers from the mainland might not know that kids leave their shoes at the door, the importance of ancestors, grandparents coming into the classroom. HĀ helps bring teachers new to this context into the community.”

Commitment to collaboration, growth and, teacher leadership

Leveraging cross-departmental expertise and collaboration between the induction center and other state-level staff to address high-priority needs has been instrumental in growing the induction community across the department, Keri observed. “Our director always says we’re trying to ‘melt the walls’ between state offices because it is everyone’s responsibility to support new teachers.”

For example, joint work with the state special education office has resulted in specifically adapted mentor forums that reflect up-to-date special education law, policy, and practice. The induction office also advocated for 15 permanently funded positions (one for each complex area) for dedicated special education mentors to provide just-in-time support that meets the unique needs of new special education teachers and their students.

An annual statewide survey of mentors and new teachers also helps induction staff identify the departments and expertise needed to engage to meet teacher and student needs. Support for multilingual learners repeatedly surfaces as an area of significant need. “For the last three to four years, when we ask mentors and beginning teachers where they would like more training and support, multilingual learners are consistently in the top three. So, we partnered with the Castle Foundation, our state English Learner office, and NTC for training for induction coordinators and mentors. Now, we are looking at ways we can include this content in mentor forums for all mentors.”

Kristen highlighted another feature that makes Hawai’i’s program special: a “focus on continuous growth and exceptional support for beginning teachers and mentors as well as Complex Area Induction Program Coordinators.”

Vera-Lisa agreed, saying, “The Hawai’i team is always asking, ‘How can we make it better? How can we make the experience better for the mentors, better for the teachers, better for the kids? We need another lever to make it better.’”

To this end, the NTC team has been working with Hawai’i induction staff to provide “in-field coaching,” which involves coaching for coaches based on observations of their interactions with teachers — a core component of the NTC model. “Our mentors are passionate about making a difference and eager to grow their mentoring skills, and we’re committed to investing in them,” said Kristen.

The induction program also provides opportunities to foster teacher leadership development, which induction staff actively track. “We have over 500 mentors mentoring every year, and we train about 200 new mentors every year, which is really helping to build leadership capacity. How many of our mentors actually move into more formal leadership positions like principal, vice principal? It’s no accident that our induction program sits within HIDOE’s Leadership Institute. We do really contribute, from the very beginning of the pipeline, to building leadership from our new teachers to our mentors to our induction program leaders,” Keri said.

Tracking teacher retention at the local level is complicated and labor-intensive. It’s more complex than counting how many teachers are employed at a school one year and then counting how many come back the next. There are a lot of variables and methodological considerations, and it can get messy quickly.²

Not only that, retention is a lagging indicator — you’re already into the next school year before you can compute retention data because you won’t know who is returning until they do (or don’t). And if they don’t come back, and that’s all you’re monitoring, it’s too late to do anything about it.

For these and a host of other reasons, we need to think differently about monitoring our impact on teacher retention. Rather than being in the position of reacting to staffing gaps, we must look for measures that help us be proactive, keeping our fingers on the pulse of teacher attitudes and experiences so we can do something before they start heading for the door.

Fortunately, the research is pretty clear on the factors that can influence a teacher’s decision to stay in the classroom (or at a particular school). While some of these are personal and external and beyond the control of school/district decision-makers, many are within the sphere of influence of local leaders.

Rather than being in the position of reacting to staffing gaps, we must look for measures that help us be proactive, keeping our fingers on the pulse of teacher attitudes and experiences so we can do something before they start heading for the door.

Leading indicators for retention

As a mentoring and coaching organization, we believe one leading indicator for retention is self-efficacy — a teacher’s confidence that they are effective in the classroom. Evidence suggests that poor self-efficacy is linked to higher teacher burnout and stress. We also know that teachers who do not feel prepared or supported to do well at their jobs are at much higher risk for leaving the profession, while those who have more confidence in their abilities have higher job satisfaction and more commitment to teaching.³

A related indicator is “working conditions,” which researchers Ingersoll and Tran⁴ describe as putting “the organization back into the analysis” of staffing issues referring to the “structure, management and leadership in school districts and schools.” Specific working conditions called out in the literature include:

• supportive administration/capable leadership
• relational trust and respect among staff
• meaningful professional learning
• opportunities for collaboration as well as teacher autonomy
• opportunities for advancement
• having access to a mentor or coach⁵

A growing number of recent studies indicate that these factors matter especially to teachers of color,⁶ providing clarity about steps we can take in our ongoing effort to increase grow the educator workforce and improve retention overall.

Capturing teacher feelings about their daily work

To leverage the research base on what keeps teachers in the classroom, we can and should be monitoring these leading indicators for retention. Specifically, we need to gather and analyze data on teacher beliefs, feelings, and attitudes about the school environment, as well as self-perceptions of effectiveness.

How do we do that? It’s pretty typical for schools to collect climate data through annual staff surveys. Climate surveys are appealing for many reasons. There are a lot of high-quality, open-source instruments out there with aligned student (and sometimes parent) surveys that allow schools to triangulate stakeholder feedback on the overall school environment. But what these instruments don’t address as well are conditions that tend to be more nuanced and personal and much more specific to the individual’s attitudes and feelings about their daily work:

• How supported do staff feel in their role? How much trust is there among faculty?
• How do individuals feel about their ability to implement change or their own self-efficacy? Do they feel like they can provide the best instruction for each one of their students?
• Are teachers experiencing stress and burnout?⁷
• Does the school environment support teachers in asking for and receiving help?

The question, then, is how best to capture this information and monitor these critical leading indicators. At NTC, we’ve added key questions to all our program quality surveys (PQS) and work with our partners to track and analyze the data. But what can other districts and schools do?

NTC used to administer a large-scale educator working conditions survey in multiple states and large districts called Teaching, Empowering, Leading, & Learning (TELL),⁸ which offered a robust and statistically sound approach for measuring teaching and learning conditions. From this work, we learned that if there was one single item that was strongly related to all the other things we know to be important for retention, that item is: “Overall, my school is a good place to work and learn.”

Any school or district site can gain valuable information by asking teachers just this one question. It can be added to any existing survey or administered as a stand-alone, single-item (anonymous) survey that staff can respond to with a click in an email. We’ve found it to be highly effective in capturing the mood and spirit of staff on a campus. If you start to see teachers disagreeing with that statement, then you know they are pulling away and likely to be considering a departure.

Is my school a good place to work and learn?

Learning from our partners

For over 25 years, NTC has been nurturing highly skilled mentors and coaches to guide new and developing teachers in the complex relational and intellectual work of teaching, helping to keep them in the classroom and supporting their growth as professionals. Our approach is grounded in high-trust relationships between adults designed to build teacher competence and confidence as they mature as teachers and instructional leaders. We also work with school and system leaders to create the enabling conditions for positive teacher development at the school community level.

NTC works with states and districts across the country committed to improving the teacher experience so that students thrive. Each partnership pushes our learning on how to increase teacher effectiveness and improve working conditions in schools as a sustainable approach to support job satisfaction and retention. Working across so many local contexts and geographies helps us elevate best practices and stay in tune with a changing educator workforce. Over the course of the next year, we will be sharing stories from a few of these rich and diverse communities, representing state departments of education in Minnesota and Hawai’i, a border district in Texas, and a small rural county in Eastern Maryland.

As many have observed, teacher working conditions are student learning conditions, and that’s where the rubber hits the road. Making investments in what we know matters to teachers has the potential to improve so much more than retention statistics. Is my school a good place to work and learn? The answer has to be yes.

^{1. See for example: Teacher Turnover: Why it Matters and What We Can Do About it; Teacher Turnover in High-Poverty Schools: What We Know and Can Do; How Context Matters in High-Need Schools: The Effects of Teachers’ Working Conditions on Their Professional Satisfaction and Their Students’ Achievement}

^{2. Tracking retention requires being able to compare rosters of all teachers employed in one year to subsequent years’ rosters, with multiple additional computations involved. Sometimes teachers are assigned to multiple schools and might be retained at one school but not at another school. For example, a PE teacher serves two different elementary schools one year then returns to one school but is assigned to a different second school the following year. Because the impact is different for the school vs. the district, you have to compute teacher retention both at the school level and at the district level, so really every teacher has two different retention metrics. And what if a teacher returns as an assistant principal? Is that teacher retained? It still results in a classroom role that needs to be filled. What about when teachers aren’t rehired or are shuffled around mid-year because of fluctuations in student enrollment or there’s a reduction in force? School closures? When a teacher transfers to another location, how is that coded? Because it’s so labor intensive, not all school districts, especially smaller ones, have the time or internal capacity in their HR or research departments to adequately track retention. It requires pretty sophisticated analysis to do it in a way that’s valid. If an external partner like NTC is doing the analysis, doing it right requires a data-sharing agreement with the district to get all the raw data, as well as interviews and investigation of a variety of contextual factors.}

^{3. Perceived Teacher Self‐Efficacy as a Predictor of Job Stress and Burnout: Mediation Analyses; Teacher Efficacy: Capturing an Elusive Construct; Why Do Teachers Leave?}

^{4. Teacher Shortages and Turnover in Rural Schools in the US: An Organizational Analysis}

^{5. See for example: The Factors of Teacher Attrition and Retention: An Updated and Expanded Meta-Analysis of the Literature; The Effects of Working Conditions on Teacher Retention; The Impact of Induction and Mentoring Programs for Beginning Teachers: A Critical Review of the Research; Eight Ways States Can Act Now to Retain an Effective, Diverse Teacher Workforce}

^{6. See for example: Teachers Like Us: Strategies for Increasing Educator Diversity In Public Schools; If You Listen, We Will Stay; Voices from the Classroom; Building a More Ethnoracially Diverse Teacher Workforce; Retaining Teachers of Color in Our Public Schools}

^{7. Post pandemic, we are also specifically looking at things like burnout and stress at our partner sites. How are the people in the building doing in terms of mental exhaustion, being physically tired, and where can we step in and do something to further shore up how people are feeling about their jobs? See What Promotes Teachers’ Turnover Intention? Evidence From a Meta-Analysis.}

^{8. See Leadership Matters: Teachers’ Roles in School Decision Making and School Performance; see also TELL Kentucky research links here.}

Over the last five years, our collaboration with leaders across Minnesota has strategically targeted different touch points within the state’s education system to make critical investments in teacher talent. The aim is to support retention and develop the potential of the teacher workforce to better serve the student population of Minnesota. While these efforts carry a clear Minnesota stamp, they represent bright spots the field should closely monitor.

Bright spot — Coaching that centers students in standards-based learning

In 2018, we began working with Lisa Gregoire, director of the Southwest West Central Service Cooperative’s (SWWC) New Teacher Center, to adapt our mentoring model for local professional learning across the region. This partnership has been an incubator for innovation, and we’ve been able to share model practices and strategies with a cross-section of Minnesota education stakeholders and leaders in other states through our national peer learning networks.

As the program evolves, SWWC continues to offer robust induction support that gets better and better, producing several generations of highly skilled mentors serving new teachers in the region. A critical proofpoint is how well NTC coaching aligns with the needs of beginning teachers serving students with learning differences. Special educators and teachers and coaches from alternative schools in the region report that NTC’s optimal learning environment framework and coaching tools support teachers to design appropriate and impactful instruction to meet learners needs.

A critical proofpoint is how well NTC coaching aligns with the needs of beginning teachers serving students with learning differences…. Special educators and teachers and coaches from alternative schools in the region report that our relationship-driven approach puts the student first, leveraging social-emotional learning (SEL) to design appropriate and impactful instruction.

Bright spot — Coaching across the transition from pre-service to in-service

Recently, SWWC kicked off a collaboration with Southwest Minnesota State University to pilot a grow-your-own teacher prep initiative offering coaching modeled on NTC’s approach. But this is not the only place in Minnesota where higher ed is asking the question: Why are we waiting until they get into the classroom to mentor and coach our teachers?

To ensure student teachers at Minnesota State University (MSU) at Mankato receive excellent mentoring during their field experiences, Gina Anderson, director of the College of Education’s Center for Educator Support, has embraced our coaching approach. Her team uses NTC’s professional learning and formative assessment tools and protocols to support the growth of student teachers, university supervisors, and many cooperating teachers in MSU’s Elementary and Literacy Education, K-12 Secondary, and Special Education teacher prep programs. Graduates have shared they’ve made job decisions based on what kind of support they can expect at prospective schools. Systems that offer NTC-based coaching — even when teachers have to drive farther or when the pay isn’t as good — are seen as providing a critical career-boosting benefit.

Graduates have shared they’ve made job decisions based on what kind of support they can expect at prospective schools. Systems that offer NTC-based coaching — even when teachers have to drive farther or when the pay isn’t as good — are seen as providing a critical career-boosting benefit.

Bright spot — Coaching for rural communities

To learn more about how to support students and teachers in rural areas, in 2021, NTC received a five-year Education Innovation and Research (EIR) federal grant. We partnered with 20 Minnesota schools, engaging district and school leaders and coaches to support teachers to design rigorous instruction through coaching. A key focus is on elevating student, family, community, and teacher voices in the design of a whole-school professional learning strategy that prioritizes teacher well-being. Our learning from the EIR grant will help us contribute to the local and national knowledge base of what works for rural education.

Because so much education research focuses on urban environments, the field has a lot to learn about the challenges faced by educators in rural contexts. Our learning from the EIR grant will help us contribute to the local and national knowledge base of what works for rural education.

Bright spot — State-level innovations driving optimal learning

State teacher induction policy varies widely, from the bare minimum of “you have to offer induction” to detailed, top-down mandates. From the beginning of our partnership with the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), leaders in Teacher Induction and Mentoring have been purposeful in filling the gaps seen in many state programs.

MDE is deep into a carefully planned pilot of the framework, closely monitoring local strategies, progress, and impact at schools. The goal is to be able to show how school and district leaders are rethinking induction and to share evidence, artifacts, and resources to help replicate positive changes in new teacher support across the state.

From all our years in the teacher induction business, we know the life-changing impact a skilled mentor can have on a new teacher’s career. But quality teacher induction has to also involve commitments up and down the system to create the “enabling conditions” for teacher success.

We look forward to continuing our support for Minnesota’s education leaders as they connect the dots across multiple system touchpoints, making the efforts of champions for teachers statewide bear fruit. As they position coaching as a teacher preparation, recruitment, retention, and professional development strategy, we’ll share insights on:

• building seamless support for the transition from prep programs to the classroom
• identifying promising practices to meet induction challenges in rural schools
• and more clearly codifying the essential role school and system leaders play in these efforts.

This resource provides an overview of the stages new teachers move through during that crucial first year — from anticipation, to survival, to disillusionment, to rejuvenation, to reflection, then back to anticipation. It includes real excerpts from new teachers’ journal entries and end-of-year program evaluations, reflecting support for nearly 1,500 new teachers.