Office of Maricopa County School Superintendent Steve Watson

Like most professionals, teachers feel appreciated when they are given more direct control over their outcomes. 🥰 While studying the factors that encourage teachers to stay at a particular site (or in the profession altogether), we found that leaders who extended more autonomy or increased shared decision-making had higher retention rates. 🥇 Here are some ways that leaders can support teachers in these areas: Autonomy - 🌡️ Temperature Check: Assess the current level of perceived autonomy from teachers. - 🏫 Structure: Design decision-making roles and/or expand teacher roles and influence. - 🧑🤝🧑 Inclusion: Include teachers in policy discussions at school and district levels. - 💪 Strengths: Leverage skills in your team to strengthen the school. - 👨🔬 Take Chances: Encourage risk-taking & celebrate creativity. Shared Decision-Making - 🗨️ Site Culture: Create a culture of feedback, input and collaborative leadership. - 👂 Collaborate: Include teachers, support staff, and community members when making school decisions. - 🙋♀️ Varied Input: Strategically and intentionally include diverse perspectives. - 🤸 Identify Skills: Work with staff to asset map the collective knowledge, skills, experience, and interests present in your team. - 📈 Sustain & Grow: Consider sustainability and/or succession planning with school programs, leadership and initiatives. Find more tips now in out survey on teacher retention - "The Reason 'They' Stay..." - at https://lnkd.in/ggm6JT8X

Earlier, we talked about the four essential focus areas that leaders should know for supporting teachers. 🏫This week, we take a look at "Protecting Teacher Time". ⏰ Most of the teachers we've heard from are passionate about the profession, but don't feel they have enough time to dedicate solely to student instruction. Between meetings, district initiatives, and administrative work, teacher attention is being pulled in many directions. 😵 These are some of the recommendations we've found for leaders to help relieve that stress: Professional Development 👩🏫 - Offer relevant and meaningful PD opportunities that meet teacher needs and interests, but avoid unnecessary or redundant training. - Reduce the frequency and duration of meetings that do not directly contribute to student learning. - Use electronic communication instead of in-person meetings when possible. Reduce the Burden 🤝 - Delegate effectively to relieve teachers of unnecessary admin tasks. - Protect planning, prep, and collaboration time. - Use current non-teaching staff creatively, or consider hiring support staff for teachers. Solicit Teacher Input 💬 - Establish mechanisms for teachers to provide feedback. - Leverage expertise and input from teachers. Find more tips now in out survey on teacher retention - "The Reason 'They' Stay..." - at https://lnkd.in/ggm6JT8X

Teaching is a taxing profession - both physically and mentally. 😵That's why teachers have stressed their need for leaders who prioritize their well-being. Based on our research, here are five general strategies that school leaders can enact to help: - 🧠 Support Teachers with Mental Health: Change the daily schedule to slow the pace and provide resources for teacher self-care. - 🌡️ Temperature Checks: Schedule check-ins with individual staff and take simple well-being polls in staff meetings. - ⌚ Support Boundaries: Avoid rewarding good work with extra work, and trim away some of the initiatives and expectations that may be extraneous. - 🗨️ Communication: Keep messages clear, concise, and away from after-hours or weekends unless it's an emergency. Remember that your actions are also a form of communication. - 🧑🤝🧑 Connection and Belonging: Set aside time for team-building, and use storytelling to share vision and create trust. Balancing teacher responsibilities while being cognizant of their time and effort can be easier said than done. 😕 But acknowledging that balance and actively working with teachers is essential towards reducing teacher stress. ⚖️ Plus - leaders should be sure to take care of themselves, too. Always model your own boundaries and healthy living! 😊 Find more tips now in out survey on teacher retention - "The Reason 'They' Stay..." - at https://lnkd.in/ggm6JT8X

Last week, we highlighted some of the things teachers said they would change if they could snap their fingers 🤞 - some more doable than others. This week, we look at the things we identified can do to help based on questions we asked throughout last year. 👨🏫 Four clear categories emerged: - Prioritize Teacher Well-Being 💗 - Protect Teacher Time ⏲️ - Extend Autonomy and Increase Shared Decision-Making 🗨️ - Prioritize Care, Appreciation, and Recognition 🏅 We've put together resources and strategies to address these areas, and they're showing promise in retaining educators. ✨ We'll feature a few of these over the next four weeks on our socials, but you can find all our suggestions now in our white paper - "The Reason 'They' Stay..." https://lnkd.in/ggm6JT8X

With all our discussion of teacher retention, what is it that teachers really want? 🤔 Over the past two school years, we asked thousands of teachers across Maricopa County what one factor they would change with the snap of their fingers. 🤞 We then combined their open-ended answers into the five most common categories: - Decrease Class Size - Decrease Testing - Increase Pay - Increase Prep Time - Increase Support Staff These categories may not be surprising, but they do illustrate what concerns are most on teachers' minds. 💭 Most are also connected to teachers wanting to spend more time focusing on individualized student needs in the classroom 👩🏫 (i.e. changes to class size, testing, prep time and supports). ❓ As a teacher, do you agree with these? As a leader, is there anything you can do to support with these? You can see all of the results from our survey on teacher retention - "The Reason 'They' Stay..." at https://lnkd.in/gQvREm48

👨🏫 It's no surprise that many teachers enter the field to support and see students grow. 💯 However, if the students aren't engaged in the learning process, it's not just detrimental to their results... it can also be discouraging to the teachers. 😟 In this week's look at the findings from our Teacher Retention survey - "The Reason 'They' Stay..." - we highlight the major factors that teachers say undermine student engagement, and the most effective factor that enhances it. Distractions from other students 🤪 and a lack of motivation 😔 are seen as having the most negative impact on engagement. However, parent accountability is shown to combat those factors and enhance engagement. ❓ As a teacher, do these results match what you see? As an engaged parent, do you find your student is less affected by distractions or a lack of motivation? See all of our findings from "The Reason 'They' Stay..." at https://lnkd.in/gQvREm48

When it comes to teaching, the needs of an educator can change over time. ⏰ In our teacher retention survey, "Why They Stay...", we looked to find what supports were important to teachers based on their years of experience. 🧐 While responses like "support with student behavior concerns" and administrators who are "responsive to teacher voices" were consistent, some were unique to newer or experienced teachers. 👩🏫 Teachers with less than 10 years of experience ranked "work/life" balance in their Top 3, while veteran teachers preferred open lines of communication with leaders. 📢 ❓ Where are you at in your teaching career? Do those results match your experiences? Why or why not? Let us know in the comments. Be sure to follow us for results from our teacher retention survey every Monday, or read the entire paper ("Why 'They' Stay...") now at: https://lnkd.in/gMs_WupN

If you are looking to inspire students to turn their interests in math, science, and impacting their community to work, check out what we've got for you next week in celebration of Arizona Bioscience Week! Learn more and sign up for free at https://lnkd.in/g9z5UMWK

The Shared Leadership Network met to explore the topic of Shared Leadership Structures and Reimagining Leadership Positions. THIS IS WHAT WE LEARNED: Collaborative leaders value checks and balances and want to include teachers in a wide variety of teacher leadership roles. This ensures that diverse experiences and opinions are present for all decisions. Moving away from industrial-era ideas about bosses and workers allows teams to better govern and run schools to meet the modern needs of students. Here are some examples ⬇️ ➡️ Teams divide up responsibilities and decision-making among committees, departments, grade levels, and/or teams, with each group accountable to the whole team. ➡️ Teams vote on leadership positions, including school leaders, committee leaders, and grade level teams. ➡️ Teams create structures where all teachers serve on some leadership committee, and then these groups report back to the whole team for final decisions. ➡️ Teams may embrace non-traditional duties for administrators, teachers, and students, for example, teachers taking on administrative duties and administrators teaching classes and leading advisories. Interested in joining the Maricopa County Shared-Leadership Network? Register for free https://lnkd.in/g4fjcBtb #Shared-Leadership #Shared-LeadershipNetwork #Teacher-PoweredSchools #Teacher-Powered

The Shared Leadership Network met to explore the topic of Meaningfully Involving Families and Communities. THIS IS WHAT WE LEARNED: Meaningfully involving students, families, and communities goes beyond asking for their opinions. It means intentionally involving them in the design process, actively encouraging families and community organizations to be on campus and involved in student activities, and valuing families as experts in their larger communities. Here are some examples ⬇️ ➡️ Teams devote time and funds for home visits, encouraging parent participation in some projects and internships, allowing students to gain credit while working to better their communities. ➡️ Teams decide to adopt a year-round schedule or adjust daily start and end times to better meet the needs of the students and community. ➡️ Teams advance a bilingual and bicultural program that is different from the district’s standard language immersion. ➡️ Teams decide to use a community schools model to meet the needs of the whole community, including offering medical and dental services, opening their campuses after school hours for activities and adult education, and providing social services connections. Interested in joining the Maricopa County Shared-Leadership Network? Register for free https://lnkd.in/g4fjcBtb #Shared-Leadership #Shared-LeadershipNetwork #Teacher-PoweredSchools #Teacher-Powered