Nashville schools seek balance in teacher retention, recruitment

Metro Nashville Public Schools has a higher-than-average number of teachers leaving the district, creating a need for stronger recruitment efforts during a nationwide teacher shortage.

The district also has seen numerous yearly principal and teacher transfers, according to a Tennessean analysis of numbers provided by the district and state.

As a result of the rate of movement among employees, there has been a struggle for consistency at many of Metro Nashville's schools

But the numbers don’t tell the whole story, district officials say. And they are adamant that balance is slowly finding its way into the district despite struggles.

Retention

The majority of Tennessee teachers stay in Tennessee on a yearly basis, according to a statewide survey released Wednesday. About 91 percent of Tennessee teachers remained in the classroom from last school year to this year.

Metro Schools has seen a lower rate of teacher retention. Compounding the problem is the district has had very little idea why teachers leave because it hasn't tracked that data in past years.

After a Metro Council audit released in February, the district began to slowly revamp its retention practices.

Metro Schools first looked at how other urban districts retain teachers.

Nationally, school culture, strong leadership and teacher autonomy in the classroom help retain teachers, according to research reviewed by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education.

Pay is less of an issue, but in Metro Schools, most teachers with a bachelor's degree don't see a raise on the pay scale ladder until their ninth year as a teacher.

Nashville has created a committee of teachers and leaders to focus on retention issues locally and updated its hiring tools for principals so questions fit with school culture.

Despite the work, retention initiatives are still a work in progress, according to Katie Cour, Metro Schools' director of talent strategy.

Her team is looking at changing the district's exit survey to focus on one top reason for leaving the district to focus in on keeping top performers.

"People's life decisions are complicated," Cour said. "Because we ask for the top three reasons, it muddies the water."

Other next steps for revamping retention efforts include increased teacher training and bringing teachers who leave the district together to find a way to keep others from exiting. Cour said retention, ultimately, is about making it a priority.

"It is really going to hinge on where the new superintendent and the board want to take the district," she said. "Will they prioritize retention and make sure they are addressing the needs that teachers have?"

Recruitment

In a perfect world, Nashville could reduce teacher recruitment efforts if it could retain the majority of its highest performers, Cour said.

But unlike the trend nationwide where districts have struggled to find teachers, Metro Schools doesn't have a recruitment issue. Most all of the district's open seats were filled before the start of school, including high-need areas such as math, science and special education.

That is in part due to a recent focus on stronger recruiting efforts starting early in the year. However, the district has had a tough time finding a balance in recruiting a diverse pool of candidates.

"We are the happening city and people want to move here," said Shirene Douglas, director of talent acquisition.

About 30 percent of candidates come from out of state. A large majority come from Nashville universities. Vanderbilt and Lipscomb universities — top teacher programs nationally — try to place a large number of students in the district.

"The big thing is we have made a concerted effort in working in and for Metro Schools," said Barbara Stengel, professor of practice and director of secondary education at Vanderbilt's Peabody College. "And it's been just a really rich partnership."

Nonetheless, Stengel and Peabody have had to put a concerted effort into recruiting math and science majors to teaching. The same can be said for other universities.

Most of the teachers who come from Lipscomb and Vanderbilt are white. That's meant Douglas and her team have to look elsewhere to find diversity, including recruiting efforts in the Atlanta area and trips to Puerto Rico to find dual-language teachers.

Competition for those candidates is stiff, and Douglas said she would like to see the district offer moving stipends and see the community do more to rally around teachers, similar to Memphis' Teacher Town U.S.A. The community program promotes Memphis as a haven for teachers.

"We want to make sure teachers in the pipeline are quality and principals have plenty of options," Douglas said.

Transfers

Within the past four years, almost 30 principals have been transferred to another school or promoted. If you include principal retirements, resignations and nonrenewal of contracts, almost half of all schools have seen a new leader since 2012.

This year about 12 percent of teachers transferred from a school into another teaching position in the district. Yearly transfer rates of teachers have been somewhat steady.

From an outsider's perspective, it makes little sense.

"It feels like a revolving door more so than I have experienced in other districts," Stengel said. "They are not all bad moves, but school principals create communities of teachers, of students and parents."

The moves are being made for strategic reasons, according to Jay Steele, chief academic officer.

The number can be attributed to the district trying to build leadership capacity within the district from a time when there wasn't a strategic plan in moving principals, Steele said. It's a balancing act of promoting leaders when they are ready while finding consistency at a school.

The district hasn't always hit the mark, and sometimes the unexpected happens. At Bellevue Middle School last school year, moving the principal to a high-priority school set off unintended instability when the replacement principal resigned for health reasons.

But transfers aren't necessarily a bad thing, Steele said. Many principals and assistant principals have moved within the district to another school as they've proved themselves, Steele said.

"Six years ago … we had a very shallow leadership pool," Steele said. "We had to look outside for hires. We have spent a lot of time since nurturing and developing a district leadership pipeline."

And that is based on strategic decisions that look at school culture and principal effectiveness. Every principal works on a one-year contract.

"We aren't moving principals just to move them," he said. "We move based on the needs of a building."

Although there isn't a proven correlation, Cour said there is a trend of teachers leaving to join a principal during a transfer. The district tries to allow teachers the decision of whom they work with.

Steele said while high schools have seen stability in leadership, his team is working to build a more stable base of elementary and middle school leadership. The district has posted lower grades 3-8 TCAP achievement test results, and the majority of the district's priority schools are at the elementary and middle school level.

Steele and the district know the importance of stability. He said high schools have seen the least amount of principal movement, and the district is working toward that at the lower-grade levels as it builds a stronger leadership base.

"Our high schools are performing at their highest level since 2010," he said. "Every single measure in high schools are trending in the right direction."

Reach Jason Gonzales at 615-259-8047 and on Twitter@ByJasonGonzales.