Part 3 Election Primer: The Importance of Hiring and Retaining Top Teachers and Administrators

This is one of my favorite topics. I think BOE candidates should address several things about how teachers are prioritized. It might be the second most important thing they address. Why?

Any school system is only as good as they teachers they hire. Great administrators don’t focus on data. They focus on hiring and retaining great teachers. Great administrators provide upward mobility for teachers.

It is very difficult to retain good teachers and administrators. Anyone can retain the “yes people.” The very best teachers are great lesson designers and outstanding classroom managers. They are exemplars of instructional delivery and are nearly flawless communicators. One thing great teachers are not….they are not “yes people.” They will certainly follow rules and will rarely be insubordinate in the strictest of terms, but great teachers know that schools cannot improve without honest communication. And great teachers generally have strong opinions. They are not robots.

Most BOE candidates who I have followed during the last two decades know what to say regarding teacher prioritization. Few actually follow through with constructive policies which build the capacity to hire, retain, and advance great educators.

Flatly, BOE candidates can’t just “talk the talk.” They also gotta “walk the walk” when it comes to supporting system faculty and staff.

So what things do great schools and school systems do in order hire and retain great employees? Well, it begins with culture. Any gardener will tell you that every successful garden begins with great soil. The culture of our school buildings is that soil. Here is a list of things which I feel promote strong system and building culture:

1. Get rid of people in supervisory positions who are there to “catch someone doing something wrong” and keep the supervisors who actually are there to support teachers and student learning.
2. When test score data comes back less than the expectation for proven great admins and teachers, let’s not over react. Let’s look at the big picture of student learning and the overall track record.
3. Hire people into administration who have a rich history of academic instruction in either mathematics, science, literacy, and/or social studies. We have too many people working in supervisory positions who have little to no teaching background in teaching academics. How can someone be an instructional leader when they have never provided instruction?
4. Hire teachers who understand and embrace the idea that their job is to create processes which lead to proficient and advanced students. Strong proficiency/achievement is the goal.
5. Hire teachers who have diverse learning backgrounds. I have worked with teachers who have graduated from Clemson, Florida State, the University of Tennessee, Harvard, Milligan, East Tennessee State University, Carson-Newman, UTC, and the University of Kentucky to name a few. I fear we are resorting to hiring practices which are lazy and pursue teachers who will say “yes” or are only trained in pedagogy which is narrow in focus. Cast a wide net, and go get the best.
6. Build people up. If you hire well, you shouldn’t have to fire a lot of people. I get that some people have to be let go, but if you hire well…build up the people who you hire. Kingsport doesn’t pay like it used to. Some are willing to take pay cuts in order to go to other places with less meetings and less micro-managing.
7. Handle behavior effectively. I looked at a graphic where 40% of teachers in one KCS school noted that they are worried that their students are not safe from bullying. Wow. Teachers are surveyed each year in Tennessee about their building learning environments. You can find that individual school data here.
8. Professional behavior is the only behavior which should be tolerated.
9. Provide teachers with balance and do not ask them to work unpaid overtime. I get that everybody works overtime sometimes. The job has to get done, right? But there is a pervasive culture in public education which seems to imply that teachers will tutor and work bus duty well outside of their work day. I cannot count the number of last minute meetings which were schedule after my work day. Another sneaky deal is that teacher often have to complete online training (slips-trips-falls, OSHA required trainings, etc) at home and outside of work hours.
10. Fair and helpful evaluation processes. The BEST principals provide feedback within a building culture where feedback is seen as a way to improve, and is not punitive. I had some great evaluators, and some where a root canal might have been preferred.
11. Evaluation processes which are not time consuming. I really wish non-educators could see the amount of time required to complete evaluation forms. Mercy. It is insane. We are talking 5-10 hours per evaluation. Most teachers have at least two evaluations per year – one announced and one unannounced.
12. Respect planning time. The youngest generations want balance. Fail to respect that, and they will cycle out of your system. Planning time does not equal collaboration time! Planning time is for returning parent emails and phone calls. Planning time is for researching and building great lessons – and yes! some teachers like to work by themselves, and that is OK!!!! And sometimes teachers just need to collect their thoughts, pay a bill, call a family member, decompress, go to the bathroom, or just sit down and talk to their coworkers.
13. Promote and value creativity by teachers.
14. Build great cultures in each building where coworkers support one another.
15. Building leaders need to be great communicators.