Most industries are facing significant workforce challenges and experiencing common characteristics of today’s workforce. We see a large swath of the workforce aging and retiring, and a cultural response to the trauma from the COVID-19 pandemic. The education world is not immune from these changes. While no one would suggest schools and businesses are the same—there are perhaps a few places that we can learn from industry on the best ways to attract and retain the best talent.

Companies are increasingly working to build cultures that allow employees to “bring their whole self to work.” What does this mean? In essence, it means that companies are being more intentional about creating a culture that allows people of all backgrounds and cultures to feel that they are welcomed and belong in their building. This can look like many things, including lunch groups for new parents, affinity groups for LGBTQ and/or black employees. These spaces allow for employees to engage in conversations with coworkers from similar backgrounds or dealing with similar life experiences.

We know from research that teachers of color need similar supports to help boost job satisfaction and retention rates. Rodel is excited to announce a new partnership with Profound Gentlemen to provide training and coaching support to teacher leaders in Red Clay and Colonial school districts. This partnership will eventually yield  “affinity groups” for teacher of color beginning next school year. These groups will build on the deep equity work already underway in both districts, with the goal of providing dedicated spaces for teachers of color to learn, share, and grow in their practice.

Another key area that companies are investing time and effort into is aligning their work to a purpose. Corporate social responsibility is on the rise with employers finding authentic ways to invest in their communities. We are seeing this locally with companies such as CSC, Bank of America, and NerdIt Now dedicating time and resources to give back to the local community in a variety of ways.

In order to inspire young people to take up the call of teaching, we can focus on two areas: 1) promote teaching as profession sooner rather than later, and 2) show students how teaching can positively impact the lives of others and their community. Rodel is working side-by-side with the Delaware Department of Education to support the pilot of a new curriculum for our high school Teacher Academy pathway that has an explicit focus on the impact of teaching in your community. Developed by a nationally recognized organization, Educators Rising, this curriculum will be expanded to additional districts next school year. The goal is to have young people feel more connected to the potential of teaching and stay on the pathway as they entire postsecondary education.

These are part of a larger effort to help strengthen and diversify our educator pipeline in Delaware. As we have shared over the past year, Rodel is committed to working with partners across the state on these efforts and we’re excited about the future opportunities for our teachers and students.

As the winter holidays recede, for many of our teachers, it already feels like June. Despite hopes that this school year would usher a return back to normal, we know that it’s been anything but that. Masks are still on. Staff shortages and burnout are real. Working to support kids, families, and communities where they need to be—academically, mentally, and emotionally—can be draining. And it’s been non-stop since the first day of school.

As the year’s first snowstorm this month met with “potential operational concerns” from districts like Brandywine, shifts to virtual learning at Capital, bus driver issues at Appoquinimink and others—a looming crisis felt closer than ever.

We face a short- and long-term crisis of ensuring that COVID does not set back the potential of an entire generation of children, which is why we must focus on providing support now to get through the immediate recruitment and retention crisis. Rodel is committed to working on long-term systemic educator pipeline issues to support teachers and students. We are proud to support the work of our higher education and district partners in strengthen the pathway to become a teacher. This includes the pilot of a new, high-quality curriculum in our high school Teacher Academy pathway, supporting the creation of professional networks for aspiring teachers at each of Delaware’s teacher preparation programs, and continuing to improve and grow teacher residency programs across the state.

We know this work will not fix the here-and-now problem of burnout during COVID, which is why we will continue to work with partners in the legislature, the Delaware Department of Education (DDOE), districts, and institutions of higher education to bringing more funding and resources to support teachers and staff.

But what about the immediate crisis?

Urgency is catching on nationwide, where states and districts are scrambling to place educators inside classrooms. California is offering higher pay for substitutes and paid professional development. Some states are offering $2,000 signing bonuses for new educators, while others are eliminating barriers like application fees.

In Delaware, schools like Eastside Charter School are offering parents cash to drive students to school to help combat a bus driver shortage. Other schools have turned to specialists (e.g. reading specialists) to serve as substitutes, or asking teachers to cover each other’s classes.

Other solutions proposed include finding additional funding to support long-term substitutes in full-time positions, with benefits, or creating incentives for substitutes, like increased pay for committing to longer timeframes.

Some policy changes could include potential emergency regulations, such as:

• Allowing student teachers to serve as teachers of record on an emergency certification, similar to ARTC candidates.
• Accept other states’ specialist certifications using reciprocity (a strategy Delaware has used for teachers).
• Shorten the “substantial break in service” for retirees (currently six months) statute to allow more to return to the classroom—at least on a temporary basis. *UPDATE* Governor Carney’s January 3 State of Emergency announcement shortened the separation requirement for retirees from six months to one month, which immediately makes 200 more people eligible to be a substitute. Their earnings will not count toward a pension cap.

 

Just as doctors-in-training spend intensive, immersive time training as a hospital resident; some of our future teachers are trading in shorter stints in schools for a full year inside a classroom, serving as co-teachers alongside veteran educators while receiving a paid stipend. While institutions like Wilmington University and RELAY Graduate School of Education adopted a residency approach several years ago, new ones just emerged at University of Delaware and Delaware State University.

It marks a growing trend in Delaware and nationwide, as residency models offer glimmers of hope for improving teacher retention and diversity. In 2019, Delaware invested $1 million to double the number of yearlong residencies in Delaware.

Rodel is proud to be collaborating with two of our largest districts, Colonial and Red Clay, as well as our institutes of higher education, and the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation—on a years-long project that will diversify our teaching workforce, and retain more qualified teachers. We’re excited to convene local and national partners, while bringing our project management and research support to the table. By leaning into the residency model, and focusing on recruiting and retaining new teachers, we are working to build a more sustainable system that supports kids.

Among the project goals is increasing the number of teacher residents statewide from 42 to 75 by 2023 and within Red Clay and Colonial from a combined 28 teacher residents currently to a combined 41.

Our progress is commendable, but advocates will now turn their attention to the new state legislature to codify its commitment to yearlong teacher residencies, and make sure funding is sustainable.

If all goes well, this commitment could lead to wider growth of residency programs and a robust (and diverse) pipeline of talented teachers who stick around in our schools. They’re not a silver bullet that will “solve” teacher diversity and retention in Delaware, but they can certainly help.

What are teacher residencies? The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) contains the technical definition, but a teacher residency is considered an “alternative route” to teaching because it differs from the traditional, undergraduate approach of a teacher preparation program (though often it is embedded within these types of programs).

Typically, an aspiring teacher looking to enter a residency program must apply and be accepted. Once they are accepted, a resident then works as an apprentice for one year in a classroom with an expert teacher while simultaneously engaging in coursework at an affiliated college or university. Some residents receive a stipend and a scholarship during their apprenticeship year in exchange for their commitment to teach in the same district for a few years beyond the year of apprenticeship.

Teacher resident programs typically focus on high-need content or hiring areas in a high-need school. In Delaware, this includes areas like: middle school and high school math, middle school and high school science, foreign language, secondary special education, and bilingual/ESOL programs.

Why are they important? Teacher residency programs look to address a multitude of problems that exist in the teaching profession. States across the country face teacher shortages, high turnover rates, and many struggle to recruit and retrain teachers of color. This can negatively impact students. As a Learning Policy Institute report points out, “at many schools—especially those serving the most vulnerable populations—students often face a revolving door of teachers over the course of their school careers.”

These problems ring true in Delaware. Local districts primarily recruit from local universities – most prominently from University of Delaware and Wilmington University. Since 2010, however, enrollment in traditional teacher preparation programs has decreased, making the applicant pool smaller each year.

Delaware also struggles to recruit and retain educators of color. Teachers and school leaders in Delaware are overwhelming white while nearly half of the student population are students of color. As of the 2017-18 school year, less than 15 percent of teachers in Delaware were non-white. As of 2018, only about 27 percent of students enrolled in Delaware education preparation programs were students of color.  And only about 50 percent of teachers of color are in the same school after two years.

A 2016 News Journal reported that Delaware schools saw a teacher turnover rate (the rate at which teachers leave their school) of about 15 percent, but the number was higher in high-needs schools. A 2015 report produced by Harvard’s Strategic Data Project for the Delaware Department of Education also noted this trend, stating that year-to-year, the rate of teacher turnover in Delaware is higher in high-poverty schools.

What are the benefits? Teacher residency programs “create a vehicle to recruit teachers for high-needs fields and locations; offer recruits strong content and clinical preparation specifically for the kinds of schools in which they will teach; connect new teachers to early career mentoring that will keep them in the profession; and provide financial incentives that will keep teachers in the districts that have invested in them.”

Some consider residency models the gold standard for teacher prep models, as they often lead to “higher retention of teachers in the field, greater demographic diversity among teachers prepared through residency programs, and the potential to increase student achievement.”

Experts found that teacher residency programs: (1) provide a consistent pipeline of new teachers, (2) recruit more diverse candidates, (3) meet student and district needs by reducing turnover and filling shortages, (4) provide value to school communities and classrooms. The National Center for Teacher Residencies (NCTR)—whose network of teachers-in-training are placed throughout the country—reported that when surveying partners in their network:

• 91% of hiring principals report that residency-trained teachers outperform typical new teachers
• 92% of residency-program graduates teach in Title I Schools
• 86% of graduates continue to teach in partner districts after three years
• 52% of residents in their residency programs identify as people of color

 

What’s next? Demand is clearly growing in Delaware for more residency programs. The Educator Support Team at DDOE recently released a Request for Applications to support yearlong teacher residencies from July 1, 2021 to June 30, 2022. Governor John Carney’s recommended FY22 budget once again includes $1 million for teacher residencies.

The NCTR is working with DSU to develop their residency programs. The College of Arts and Sciences and College of Human Development at University of Delaware held a conference last February on teacher residencies. As one of the youngest and most diverse legislatures in state history begins its work this month, teacher residencies will no doubt remain a priority.

If the General Assembly comes through and codifies this commitment through the legislative process, Delaware districts and institutes of higher education would gain confidence in the long-term sustainability of this program.

The notion that a more diverse teacher workforce increases student wellbeing and academic success is not a new idea. Research has shown that a more diverse teacher workforce leads to better student outcomes, increases access to advanced coursework, and builds strong social-emotional support for students. Yet, across Delaware and the nation, teaching staffs rarely look like the students they serve.

In Delaware, 56 percent of our students identify as students of color, while only 17 percent of our workforce are teachers of color. More striking is that we are not retaining our teachers of color at the same rate as white teachers, with only 50 percent staying in their same school after two years and only 70 percent staying in the state.

The Education Trust recently released a new 50-state report card on teacher diversity policy that reinforces the hard work ahead to improve upon these numbers. Overall, the diversity report shows a mixed bag for Delaware. While it highlights some areas of success for our state—such as transparency in data reporting and investments to retain teachers—there is still much to be done. Clearly, we need more investments that target increased recruitment, training, and hiring of teachers of color

At Rodel, we are working with a committed group of partners representing 20 percent of the students and teachers in the state on the hard work to address these areas of need. Over the next two years our goal is to increase the number of teacher residents across the state from 47 to 75; increase the diversity of our first-year teachers from 34 percent teachers of color today to 40 percent in 2022; and increase the percentage of teachers of color who stay in the profession after two years from 78 percent today to 82 percent in 2022.

To achieve these goals we are working in three critical areas:

• Increasing the reach and sustainability of residency programs in the state through investments in new programs at places like Delaware State University and working with our partners to improve the recruitment, selection, and support of mentor teachers that work directly in coaching and feedback of residents.
• Improving the structures and supports for our current high school Teacher Academies by working to create networking communities for students interested in pursuing teachers, and partnering with the Department of Education to improve marketing materials on becoming a teacher in Delaware.
• Creating programs with our partners to create better systems to sustain and support current and perspective teachers of color through the creation of “Grow Your Own” programs and affinity groups within districts and higher education.

 

Delaware may yet become a national leader when it comes to teacher diversity, but for now, we can celebrate some modest acclaim while acknowledging our collective work ahead.