Response:
What a fascinating video. I completely understand how the remoteness of a setting can impact the quality of a child's education. Our community is remote geographically; we are an isolated community which makes living and working there a unique experience. In Tillamook, we have struggled, for example, to improve our teacher retention. This year, as a recipient of the Chalkboard Foundation's grant, we are developing an incentive program to retain teachers new to our district. We have studied the past retention rates and average slightly greater than 50% retention of new teacher in the past 5 years. We are challenged to vie for the best teachers, the teachers that want to live in the urban areas, and typically earn a greater wage than teachers in Tillamook. We have to be creative. In fact, there is a common statement in our district regarding new teachers: if we can find them a house and a spouse, they will stay!
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...if we can find them a house and a spouse, they will stay!
ReplyDeleteAnd does it work?? I can't remember, have you been in Tillamook most of your career? Seems like you said you had, if I remember right. What are some of the strategies you're district is trying to retain teachers? In the private schools where I've worked, money and job satisfaction always was the ticket to this. But int'l schools always struggle with this issue.
Todd,
ReplyDeleteOur district was awarded one of the Chalkboard grants and we are developing an incintive program for teachers new to our district. We are still in the process of rolling it out, as we work with the unions to formulate this process, therefore, we have no data to know if it is working or not. Essentially, based on evaluations (using the Charlotte Danielson framework, teachers new to the district will earn money that is placed into savings and can be removed only midway through their 5th year teaching in the district. That money could then be used to buy a home, for example.