3 Steps Principals Can Take to Stop New Teacher Attrition

Lucie Cyliax

When I became a teacher, I was accustomed to working hard. I was also accustomed to the reciprocal relationship between success and effort that I had experienced as a student: more effort into an assignment resulted in a better grade, recognition, or opportunities.

With teaching, however, effort does not predict success. Hours of planning a lesson can still go out the window when a student melts down because the teacher wouldn't let her use a pen instead of a pencil. Spending every lunch break tutoring struggling students does not elevate you to "highly effective" status. Working on weekends will not make students achieve growth on assessments. Why would we continue to give so much energy to teaching with little guarantee of return on investment, especially when our colossal effort could yield massive returns in other fields? Our connections with students may sustain some of us, but expecting teachers to give so much of themselves in exchange for feel-good moments demeans their talents and the profession as a whole.

This problem hit home for me in my initial year teaching 1st grade. I was commuting an hour each way to work and routinely spending 12 hours a day at school planning lessons from scratch (we didn't have a formal math or reading curriculum), attempting to keep up on student data, and making my own manipulatives. I did this all while fielding hostile parent emails asking me why I wasn't doing a better job. I knew I wasn't good at managing behaviors or teaching standards, despite a herculean effort that often left me in tears by the end of the day. 

Yet, I kept expecting someone to at least congratulate me on continuing to show up every day. Instead, I ended my first year utterly humiliated when I received the lowest possible scores on my evaluation. Maybe it was selfish to expect praise just for trying, but it seemed unfair to give so much of myself for so little in return. I believe that it is this injustice, not the hard work itself, that drives so many young teachers from the profession.

While asking teachers to do less may not be an option, administrators must improve how they support and validate teachers if they expect to retain them. Principals can do this in several realistic ways.

Strong Professional Networks

Isolation during the first few years of teaching damages a teacher's confidence and ability to grow professionally. Isolation occurs when new teachers find themselves in hostile professional communities, in a homogenous teacher population, or in a subject area where no professional network exists. Principals can prevent these situations by applying several tactics.

1. Principals can rearrange professional learning communities so new teachers find themselves in groups that get along well together, face challenges in a positive way, and will mentor new teachers. Principals cannot allow a grade level or a subject area to become a breeding ground for negativity. If so, these groups inevitably end up with more openings. Adding a new teacher into such a group sets that person up for failure.
2. Administrators must diversify their personnel. A lone teacher of a certain race, background, or gender suffers additional stress as they try to navigate insensitivities and lack of understanding from the rest of the staff. If an applicant pool lacks diversity, administrators owe it to their staff to examine root causes and expand recruitment efforts.
3. Administrators can look across the district to identify strong mentors for new teachers, especially for those who might not have any or many colleagues in similar jobs in their school.

When teachers are supported by a strong professional network, they will feel less stigma and shame when faced with challenges. In turn, they will be more open about their struggles and willing to ask for advice.

Careful Criticism

In addition to providing new teachers with support networks, administrators must also use care when giving new teachers feedback. For many new teachers, especially those coming straight from college, teaching is their first real professional challenge. When new teachers discover how difficult teaching truly is, they can internalize their struggles and interpret them as failure. 

That's why principals who wish to retain new teachers should be encouraging in observations and evaluations. Experience irons out many shortcomings that beginning teachers possess, and asking them to agonize over these things in their first year will only lead to demoralization. Whenever possible, also avoid giving new teachers an additional "laundry list" of responsibilities or strategies that you require them to try—that will just make the job feel that much harder.

To help new teachers improve while preserving their sense of worth, administrators and coaches can focus constructive feedback on:

• Providing one or two actionable strategies that the teacher can implement right away.
• Asking new teachers to self-assess their areas of need and then connecting them with teachers in the school who handle these areas well.

Although evaluations are an inevitable part of teaching, administrators can frame them as a tool for growth. Similarly, training for new teachers should focus on giving them a "tool kit" of instructional strategies, and teachers should leave training feeling inspired to try something new. The opportunity to see master teachers, either in person or in videos, trying exciting strategies can inspire passion and enthusiasm in the new teachers.

Targeted Praise and Validation from Leaders

Developing a system for validating teachers serves as an administrator's most important tool in teacher retention. Many schools have systems where staff can give each other "shout outs" for positive actions, such as covering another classroom in an emergency or printing off substitute plans for another teacher. These systems, while supporting staff morale, are insufficient when it comes to teacher motivation. Teachers need praise focused on actions taking place in their classroom and related to their specific teaching style. With our students, targeted praise works miracles when it comes to encouraging desired behaviors. Similarly, teachers will perform in the ways administrators want them to when they feel seen and appreciated.

To meaningfully validate new teachers, school leaders must be aware of what is going on in new teachers' classrooms. This can happen in several ways. If administrators require new teachers to share their lesson plans with them, they can give targeted praise on strong plans. They can also identify a lesson they find especially engaging and ask if they can come see it in action. 

Social media can also be a tool for connecting administrators with teachers who are sharing exciting things happening in their classrooms. Leaders can also build relationships with teachers through informal, nonevaluative observations that let them acknowledge teacher work, either in face-to-face conversations or as a follow-up in writing. These informal interactions are brief and highlight something positive about instruction, lesson design, interaction with students, or classroom environment.

Although many of the strategies outlined here may present administrators with additional work, the well-being of our teachers and sustainability of school staffing deserves the extra energy. When attention is not paid to these areas, administrators spend more time hiring new staff each spring, as quality teachers leave the profession for more rewarding and sustainable paths. For me, more support and validation would have given my teaching career a jump-start that allowed me to see more success in my first few years. For our society as a whole, support and validation of new teachers ensure the long-term health of our profession and the communities we serve.

Lucie Cyliax is a third-year teacher at Edgewood Primary School in Bloomington, Ind. She spent two years teaching 1st grade before finding her passion as an art teacher.

ASCD Express, Vol. 14, No. 33. Copyright 2019 by ASCD. All rights reserved. Visit www.ascd.org/ascdexpress.