How 8 School Districts are Tackling Teacher Recruitment and Retention

In 2017, eight school districts in Delaware, Indiana, South Carolina, and Texas came together to form the Network Improvement Community (NIC), an initiative funded by the Teacher and School Leader Incentive Program (TSL) Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This project, referred to as Empowering Educators to Excel (E3+), was launched to share best practices and provide support, resources, and coaching for small and/or rural districts.

Today, as E3+ Recruitment and Retention Coaches, we work with the NIC to find, train, and develop the most impactful educators to put in front of our students—and to share our valuable insights with other educators. With 65 combined years of educational experience, we are excited for this new adventure of supporting districts across the country and sharing some of the strategies that have proven to be successful in recruitment and retention, as well as some of the challenges they have experienced.

As we investigated the needs of the eight districts in the NIC, we established two initial goals to help guide us.

Goal #1

Examine each district’s fill rate (percentage) at the start of the 2022-23 school year and look to increase that number for next school year. For instance, will district A’s percentage, which was at 85% this past August (2022), be at a higher rate next August (2023) based on the strategies we will share?

Goal #2

Examine our districts’ efforts to retain effective educators and staff by the implementation of climate-building, supportive mechanisms. In other words, will district A’s 15% vacancy from May of 2022, decrease as the school year ends in 2023?What have we learned so far?

1. Retention is the new recruitment! Onboarding teams are essential to ensure that every new hire feels connected and that they belong through their first year and beyond.
2. There are five characteristics of an effective retention and recruitment system:
   1. Year-round
   2. Multi-stakeholder
   3. Multi-channel
   4. Relationship-driven
   5. Equity-driven
3. Clarity around hiring is essential. What does your ideal candidate profile look like? What characteristics are you looking for? Additionally, make your recruitment process transparent to your candidates.
4. Attracting a diverse candidate pool is critical. One of our goals is to increase the number of teachers of color. Teachers of color bring benefits to classrooms beyond pedagogy and content knowledge. According to a Learning Policy Institute report, all students, regardless of race, report feeling cared for and academically challenged by teachers of color.
5. Developing a district strategic plan is invaluable to ensure there are consistent goals and strategies throughout the entire school district.

With retention and recruitment in clear view as a national concern, our goal is to provide strategies to effectively build a pool of qualified candidates for vacancy needs and provide climate-building strategies for building leaders to keep staffing positions filled.

About the Authors

Jana Anderson is an E3+ Recruitment and Retention Project Coach for MSD of Decatur Township. Through the E3+ grant, she will be providing support to 8 districts and 7 states around the country working with Human Resource Directors and Project Coaches. Prior to Jana’s  current role, she was the principal for 10 years at the Gold Academy in  MSD of Decatur Township in Indianapolis, Indiana. In her 30 plus years in education, she has served as a sixth grade teacher and an instructional coach. Jana focuses on building relationships with students, staff, and families which creates a community-based approach to education. She holds a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Indiana University and a master’s degree in administration from Indiana State University. janderson@decaturproud.org | @JanaAnd112067

Jack Birmingham has been a teacher and administrator for over 35 years. Since 2001, Jack’s administrative path included assistant principal, athletic director, principal and assistant superintendent. Currently, he serves as MSD Decatur Township and E3+ Recruitment/Retention coach. Jack continues to serve the leaders of Indiana, mentoring building leaders through the Indiana Association of School Principals, presenting on school climate and is the author of the school leadership book, Carnivals 2 Theme Parks, published in 2019. jbirmingham@decaturproud.org | @jdbirm