How to Retain Excellent Teachers at Your School

For any school, good school teachers are its greatest assets. However, it is a sad reality that most teachers are overworked and underpaid. With nearly 50 hour work weeks, it is natural that whenever the opportunity presents itself, teachers leave for higher-paying jobs or change their careers altogether.

This creates pressure in schools to find replacements in very short time duration. Very often, due to such a short time duration in which the replacement is met, the quality of the teachers is not ideal. This eventually makes students suffer which in turn creates a negative word of mouth for the school.

Schools all over are working to prevent attrition, especially sudden ones, and trying hard to retain excellent educators. While the reason for attrition depends on the particular teacher, we believe that attrition is a reflection of the kind of work environment that the school offers and when teachers feel there is no scope of career development for them.

In this article, we are addressing this core issue and suggesting four ways to make your school the place where teachers want to work and stay.

• Transparent Communication

Teachers are the ones who implement the policies of the school amongst the students on a daily basis. It is imperative they understand why the policies of the school are what they are. The only way to inculcate this is by having constant communication with the teachers and clearly explaining the rationale behind each and every policy clearly. Clear transparent communication ensures that teachers don’t feel that the policies are imposed on them, rather they were themselves part of the decision-making process that framed those policies.

The School Owner App at LEAD, is in sync with the teaching app for teachers, ensuring that the school owners are in touch with what is happening with their teachers and their progress.

• Clear Career Path

Every working professional seeks a career in which there is a clear growth track. Teachers are no different. If a school expects someone to just teach a subject day in and day out for 30 years, well, it is not going to cut ice with the present generation of young professionals. So schools need to chalk out a clear career path and communicate it to their teachers. When teachers feel that there is professional growth that will materialize over the years, attrition rates are bound to drop.

• Provide Training Opportunities

One way to foster a sense of loyalty amongst any kind of employee is to provide upskilling opportunities for them periodically. Again, teachers are no different. It is very easy for teachers to get into a rut, delivering the same content over and over for many years. They need to be motivated to update their content, learn new presentation methods, and relearn any ideas that they are weak in. This calls for regular training and exposure to emerging technologies. When teachers feel that the school cares for their development as a professional, attrition rates will drop.

Partnering with professional teacher training schools or having an integrated teacher training app can help.

• Create a Collaborative Environment

There are two ways to run a school. The first case is where senior management issues orders for the rest to follow without question. The flaws of this way of managing the school are obvious. We will just add that the restrictive environment it creates rarely allows creativity and free thought to emerge. The second way is to create a collaborative space where teachers feel safe to voice their opinions. Schools that implement the second method make teachers feel valued stakeholders who are invested in the betterment of the school.

Changes in the work culture of a school entail a slow and painful process but they can be achieved. Schools need to critically analyze their workspaces and understand their shortcomings if any. Only by creating an open, transparent, and collaborative environment can schools tackle the problem of teacher attrition.

LEAD is an integrated system that aims to revolutionize every child’s learning experience. We empower teachers, parents, principals, and school owners to work towards a unified goal of achieving excellent learning for students. Our integrated system is the perfect marriage of curriculum, pedagogy, and technology. Our proficient team works with principals and teachers in collaboration to transform their schools. Apart from providing teachers with the latest tools and resources, we pay special attention to the training and development of teachers. We do this through LEAD Academy, a training program integrated with our teaching app for teachers.