Hiring, retaining teachers remains a top school district challenge — and priority
Although the School District of Lee County continues to reduce teaching vacancies, it still struggles with teachers leaving the district.
Human Resources Executive Director Dr. Shanna Johnston said during Tuesday’s School Board meeting that the district began a four-month initiative in January to focus on recruitment as it is one of their priorities — to align their vision and mission with recruiting, developing and maintaining highly developed staff.
At the beginning of the initiative, the district had 211 instructional vacancies, which is now at 31 open and advertised. Seventeen of those positions are core instructional, she said.
Core classrooms are self-contained with teachers who have students in their classrooms as well as Exceptional Student Education professionals.
“Coaches, speech and language pathologists would be considered within the total,” Johnston said.
Johnston said 11 of the 31 openings are for speech and language pathologist.
“We are not centralizing the hiring of speech and language pathologist. We are entertaining the thoughts of using a virtual model of pathologists,” she said, adding that there is a national movement from a case load to a workload. “Recognize not just how many students, but understanding the depths of resources needed.”
Another interesting piece of data that was shared Tuesday afternoon was the number of teachers hired since August and the number of those who have left. Johnston said they have hired 197 teachers since Aug. 28, and 253 teachers have separated from the district.
“We are losing teachers faster than hiring them,” she said. “We have to focus on retention, which is the large part of the ‘why.'”
Teacher retention was 83.8% with a turnover of 16.2% in October 2023. The 2023-2024 actual results increased to 84.4% with a 15.6% turnover rate.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the turnover range is from 12 to 16%.
The fiscal year 2024 retention rate was 92% in Collier County and 83% in Charlotte County.
Board member William Ribble said moving the needle 1% a year is not going to get the problem of teacher retention fixed.
“Turnover drives everything in the district. (If we) can’t get this fixed, we will be in trouble down the line. What is measured gets results. When you have that accountability, look at what happens to your numbers,” he said.
Johnston agreed in stating that 1% a year is not going to cut it, and the district must focus on high impact and retention.
“Every single aspect of our school district operation is designed to support the teaching process,” Deputy Superintendent Dr. Ken Savage said. “There are no small roles in this district, no small parts. That is part of the challenge. We have to find a way to optimize those services – looking at challenges by thinking differently.”
He said one big strategy is to look at virtual opportunities, as it opens the talent pool up to the entire country.
Board member Melisa Giovannelli questioned looking for talent nationwide with salaries not even competing with local districts.
“I think we need to focus on how to pay people now and competitively against our own district before we can hire and retain something nationally,” she said.
Savage said Florida has made great strides in raising the starting pay for teacher’s salaries, which has raised the competitiveness for the state.
Johnston said within the new organizational structure they must establish metrics, retention rates, stay and exit surveys and interviews. Johnston said they do a great job of focusing on retention in the district – developing teachers, but what about other employees – custodians, cafeteria workers.
“We are too big to be dealing with one teacher, one person at a time,” Johnston said. “Strategies have to affect a lot of people at a time to make the needle move.”
The district learned many things throughout the four-month initiative.
One of those is the pathway to obtain a certification is complex and timely, longer than what the district acknowledged in many cases. She said individuals shared the barriers that they faced, which developed patterns the district saw. One of which is having a hard time passing subject area tests.
The district used Learning Liaisons to provide test prep to help individuals prepare for subject area tests. Forty-nine individuals utilized this service.
Another common barrier – the cost to take the subject area tests. Future Makers offered to pay for the test.
Language was another barrier, which resulted in setting up a course to help ease that barrier.
Johnston said it became more of a long-term initiative, rather than a four-month initiative.
“At the end of March we began calling schools that still had openings and talked through master scheduling, current staff and certifications and helped brainstorm to get creative,” she said.
To reach MEGHAN BRADBURY, please email news@breezenewspapers.com