Thoughts on Teacher Retention: Let Learning Happen

Just before leaving Seattle for New Orleans, I heard the principal of the high school I taught at changed. This was unfortunate; she was one of the only Black principal in the district and had been named principal of the year a few years ago. The pandemic probably changed a lot of how schooling is being done, and stable leadership from the “before times” churns as many received promotions or retired. Or like me, started a doctoral program. I remember when I told one of my seniors I was going to graduate school, he responded, “We had three principals in four years. You need to get out of here with the rest of us.”

Every year before classes start, I get a call asking either if I was interested in science positions in the district, or if I would be willing to be a substitute teacher. I, of course, decline, but I re-weigh the possibility each year. No, it has never come close to me considering stopping graduate school. I do, however, like watching school board meetings on YouTube as they figure out incentives to recruit and retain teachers for the district.

 

Building Community in a Rules-heavy Environment

Keeping track of the numbers and who is doing what exactly can be tough for school communities. The principal who just left had the title of “acting principal” in her first year, just like her successor. That job title doesn’t convey confidence to parents, teachers, staff, or even students. However, I do appreciate her gestures to recognize and build community.  The “acting” part of the title changed the following year.

At one pep rally, she awkwardly danced around the four different sections of bleachers. Nobody joined her because I think students were confused and afraid they’d get yelled at for leaving their seats. There was also a group of parents and media watching with the principal being the only person dancing on the basketball court.

Close to the end of the school year, there was a “senior prank”: toilet papering the main courtyard. It was just straight vandalism. I had an environmental science class in my first period, and we cleaned it up; to make it related to the curriculum, we weighed it all and realized so much destruction can happen from just one pack. The principal had left campus to pick up donuts for my students, yet many said “We’re good. We cleaned it up because it looked so bad.” They weren’t impressed by the graduating class, but they were appreciative of the donuts they passed on. I remember this one vignette because I think it reframed how that class went for the rest of the year. They reasoned that it was awful to clean up after other people, and that we should just prevent environmental disaster beforehand; the BP oil spill was a case-study they became interested in. That and Harambe and the role of zoos in wildlife conservation were really great discussions.

These shoes weren't against dress code,
unless you stretched what was "disruptive."

I found that disruptions to the learning environment were manageable, but it was always "death by a thousand cuts" rather than major incidents. However, I found selective enforcement of rules hurt student learning outcomes the most. It also watered down more serious issues when there was a backlog of dress code violations. I found my principal to be supportive, but certain assistant principals seemed more concerned about the volume of discipline records instead of academic outcomes.

Would I have stayed?

I know I’m being nostalgic, but what kept me around was probably the robotics team. It’s similar logic to a lot of sports coaches where the teaching gig is the side gig; I think I was there for the full set of students rather than just student athletes (but students who were athletes were great!). However, I feel the dual enrollment opportunities my school pursued were excellent alternatives to Advanced Placement (AP) classes. I think I would stay, and possibly be attracted to administration, but I wouldn’t want to go to central office. If pay was my main motivator, I would be doing something in neuroscience or medicine. I’m in the field of education to help students and families.

 

Retention: The Numbers

At the last high school I taught at since starting my doctoral program, about 24 of the 80 teachers (about 30%) are from “my time.” That means retention of that cohort year-over-year was around 75%. Put another way, about 1 in 4 of those teachers left the school each year, for all reasons including retirement or moving to a different school. Teachers were rarely dismissed due to their evaluations, even though some found them stressful. Considering that we don’t typically loop teachers, or keep students matched with teachers across subjects, students have a good chance of having classes scheduled with teachers who are completely new to the school.

 

Note: This is based off of the cohort from the 2018-19 and 2023-24 school years.
Actual retention year-over-year is higher.

With all this said, both my successors for high school science and summer robotics stuck with it for the past five or six years, respectively. My science department kept 7 of 9 teachers from my time, or 8 if you count my replacement. I also want to note that, a lot of the retention is for upper-level weighted courses including honors, dual enrollment, advanced placement, and gifted. Science can be hard-to-staff, but I think that was more of a recruitment problem rather than a retention issue.

For comparison, at the summer program I taught at in the Greater New Orleans area, only 6 of 40 instructors remain, yet 3 of the 4 administrators stayed on board. That’s a 15% retention rate over the six-year period, or a drop of 30% change for teachers. Two of the six instructors were teaching assistants, but notably they were college students back in the summers of 2016 and 2017. It's a different kind of instructor; most were professional artists rather than formal classroom educators. The admin are more focused on the business and management aspects; I recall the former director sending messages to not talk about compensation since it would cause "unnecessary conflict." Still, to be frank, it paid well for a month-long commitment.

Note: This is based off Summer 2018 to Summer 2023.
I didn't teach there the summer before grad school.

To the two instructors at the summer program who were assistants when I was there, I don’t think it’s a surprise they were the ones who stayed. They were students at selective high schools in the New Orleans area, and they went to good colleges.  They were considerably talented in their own right, mature leaders among the others their age. I didn't work too closely with them aside from morning meetings and lunch duty, but they were memorable for being caring and kind. On the last days of class, they promoted what the kids had made and learned, and they genuinely hyped up what we were all doing.

Discussion

The pandemic's effects on Louisiana teachers is difficult to discern.

Here are my frustrations with some administration and counselors as a teacher. Usually, these revolved around class size; I routinely had around 34 in some classes, especially my dual enrollment classes, but far fewer in my physics classes. These weren’t specific to science, but were avoidable issues related to how schools are organized.

• I legit never had a common planning period with the colleagues in my hall, or with teachers in different subjects who taught most of my students.
• Disciplinary consequences weren’t consistent. Yes, out of class time for students has detrimental academic effects but imagine the effects when a student is constantly disruptive and knows they can get away with it because it works across classes. Students typically didn’t do anything big, but they would do a lot of little things.
• Some students’ placements were based on behavior, not academic ability. I’m all for having a heterogeneous classroom, but with the assumption that baseline skills are there. For ninth graders, this was especially a problem since it shaped whole classes. We tried our best to mitigate RNG, but the gaps were challenging to close.
• Feeder schools varied in quality. It was well known who was getting passed through in eighth grade. It wasn’t fair to focus on remediation, but some students needed it.
• My classes were unbalanced. My sixth period physics class, out of seven, often had fewer than five students since many seniors opted for a short day, since they’d have enough credit hours to graduate. We had an overemphasis on class rank and the Top 10, and the students knew that if they weren’t competitive for it, they could take a reduced course load and go home early.

Overall, I don’t think I needed more incentives to stay. For the most part, the community aspects of school were great. I can see a lot of the administrative aspects were what drew me to higher education. I think that would be similar to a lot of young people who become teachers; systemic changes to teacher pay and working conditions happen when we can get out of our own way.

Reflections on Teaching High School Student Athletes

One Monday morning class, I remember congratulating a student for the win on Friday night. They thanked me. When I said I watched, they didn’t believe me. A teacher driving across state to an away game was unheard of. Students didn’t even do that, so they thought I must’ve heard the results from one of the coaches. By the next game, and up until the September before graduate school, I brought the Captain America shield so students would know I was there, and to remind them about defense.

This was the first of three shields (2013).

I made it a point to go to games so each of my students would have someone they knew in the stands supporting them. They had lives outside of the classroom, and playing sports was one way to connect a school community.

The student athletes I worked with tended to be very well rounded academically. Instances of student athletes being “twice exceptional” or 2E, having academic gifts and talents alongside a disability, learning or otherwise, seemed to be mitigated on the field. They chose their activity and became well-practiced in it.

All my professional high school science teaching experience comes from Louisiana. Archery, diving, gymnastics, hockey, lacrosse, and water polo didn’t seem to exist there, but in Seattle, I can point to people I’ve met here who played in high school. We had enough sports, though. I won’t dive into the economics and education finance dimensions of this topic quite yet, but I wanted to casually reflect on some of the teams students were a part of.

Swimming

This sport has the highest density of high academic achievers. Most of the swimmers were affluent; training required off-campus facilities. The swimmers also tended to be musically-inclined.

Track and Field

Since there were so many events and so much down time, I remember finishing lesson plans and grading papers at these meets. The wide-representation of schools also allowed me to catch up with other teachers outside of professional development time. Students ran, jumped, and threw objects. I recall an uptick in engagement whenever I used track and field problems for my physics class. Triple memes: Ghost Love Score Epic Maneuver, Leeroy Jenkins, and Xena.

 

Cross Country

This was one of the sports I hadn’t watched, but since I was often on campus after school, I’d see some of my students run their nth lap. We didn’t have indoor tracks, and as you can imagine, Louisiana is really humid. Even at football games in the evening, cross country students were still running around.

Soccer

Both men and women’s soccer were well-represented in my classes. I also saw a mix of family incomes in who played. They were all heavily involved with leagues, and I know someone who played semi-pro.

Basketball

The school I taught at was a basketball school with students going on to the NBA and WNBA. We had a student lead her team to victory in the NCAA championship, and those who followed were highly motivated. When these alumni return, it draws a huge community crowd.

Baseball

Over the years, I hadn’t had very many high achieving baseball players. Maybe it was because their season was late, but anecdotally, the young men who played baseball were the most stereotypical hybrid of slacker and jock profiles. They also left for games during class a lot of the time. It might also be that one particular group of students were wrapped up in cheating for my dual enrollment chemistry class early in the year.

Softball

Softball players, on the other hand, were often themselves very organized. However, I noticed a lower level of staffing to record game statistics. I always heard of scouts at the baseball games, but not much for softball. Still, I think their team dynamics were more wholesome.

Volleyball

This was the one sport students seemed to know most about because it’s one of the few actually played in their P.E. classes. I really appreciated the annual visit from my high school physics teacher since she coached the opposing volleyball team. The group hug after every rally was also very consequential in lowering team animosity.

Tennis

This was more of an individual sport, and it showed. Tennis rage was very clear. I remember a fairly cliquey bunch who were all striving to outdo each other.

I remember asking my one friend who played for Tulane and University of Wisconsin – Madison if that was normal, and I remember well her hustle and grindset mentality.

Powerlifting

These meets didn’t seem to happen often, but I remember a few record-breaking students. They tended to fill the gentle giant stereotype, and they always wanted me to just watch them pick up something heavy.

Wrestling

This wasn’t as big in the schools I taught at, mostly because of the representation of other sports.

Bowling

I’m considering it here. Bowling was inarguably an accessible activity with a lot of the social benefits of other sports. It was also easy to make physics problems about.

Cheerleading

I have to be honest. This was the one activity I feared because the chances of a head injury seemed so high. Yes, they practice a lot, but the risk was very high. Usually, the injuries were to limbs, but I recall at least one student each year having to cheer from the sidelines. The cheerleading competitions were also during the school day, so makeup tests were difficult since I constantly rotated versions.

One of the strangest cheerleader flexes was doing a pushup or tumble for every point, and against some teams, the counts got pretty high.

One cheerleader was nicknamed “One Above All” because she maintained a grade above 100/A in my class. When someone asked, “How did you do that?” she said, “I listen and take notes.” In a few years, she’ll be “Doctor One Above All.”

Football

One benefit of a football team in the South is how large the roster can be. This inherently made it so a lot of my students played, and aside from starting and play time, they didn’t need dramatic cuts. It was very competitive, with so many Louisianian young men striving to play in the SEC. Some football training facilities are definitely pay-to-win. I know I wasn’t going to discuss school finance, but those astroturf renovations for stadiums always made me raise an eyebrow. I get that in Louisiana the fields tend to flood, and yes, I care about reducing injuries, but astroturf, considering all other educational outcomes didn’t seem like the best use of resources.

As an aside: Also, the stand tunes meta was very strange. There were songs from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, obviously picked out by the band director, but also the list of pop songs curated by the drum majors. At the time, it was a lot Fall Out Boy, Adele, and Imagine Dragons, but also some Disney, cartoon, and video game themes. 

 

Since the marching bands had a half-time show season, marching season, and concert season, I loved watching performances evolve as they incorporated new students after band camp, but also as student athletes balanced their play time on the field and in the stands.

Discussion

I found it interesting that so many students who asked me for letters of recommendation played some sport. Some even played a few. Often, the reasons were social, different sports had different seasons, and for college admissions. Except my particular school and basketball and swimming, most didn’t pursue their sport in college beyond intramural.

The benefits of school sports have always been apparent to me, and I always had great appreciation of the social opportunities it provided. These students were rarely bullies. In fact, I heard the most criticism for the students who “just went to games” who didn’t participate in extracurriculars.

Student athletes had a drive that could be developed. A lot of them were hardworking. Few were motivated by having their rights to play taken away. Arguably, I think a lot of student athletes, at least in their season, were even more motivated to excel academically. Athletic, kinesthetic intelligence was also demonstrated and developed through activity and deliberate practice.

With all that said, high school sports are gendered and racialized.

How will they get to and from practice? Who shows up for their games?

Parent behaviors were also interesting. For their own kids, they were often critical, but for others it was always “Good hustle. You’ll get ‘em next time.” The fact some had to volunteer because they held some position in the booster club was also a curious window into some school politics, even going into the school board space. As I mentioned in my reflection about football, money and staffing gets earmarked for the athletic director budget, but austerity is the norm for covering classroom materials.

The politics of who gets to play is also concerning. In Louisiana, like other southern states, there is more than a specter of banning transgender students from a wonderful educational and affirming experience. I pause to ask, “Who benefits from taking away an opportunity?” The idea that scholarships are up for grabs ignores the very real observation that very few students continue to play in college. The immediate benefits to students playing sports far outweigh any negatives, which all come from discrimination anyway.