In an urban school district in North Texas, there was a problem retaining highly qualified novice teachers. This phenomenological study examined the experiences of novice teachers to understand why some teachers demonstrated the resiliency to succeed as professional educators and to suggest potential solutions to improve novice teacher retention. Guided by Henderson and Milstein's theory of resilience, 8 novice teachers with 2-5 years of teaching experience participated in semi structured interviews. Research questions elicited the experiences that empowered novice teacher resiliency, the perceived role of administrators and colleagues to cultivate and build capacity, and recommendations to promote resiliency. Data analyses included an inductive thematic coding process to separate the data and identify themes. According to study findings, novice teachers' support from instructional specialists and colleagues contributed to their resiliency and retention. Participants indicated that a university education alone did not prepare them for the realities of teaching in at-risk learning communities. The participants suggested differentiated professional development to address the challenges of teaching in at-risk schools. A Comprehensive Professional Development Plan was created to address the gap in novice teacher resiliency and retention and to improve instructional practices to meet the needs of novice teachers and to provide a stable and responsive learning community for students to achieve social, emotional, and academic success. This study has the potential to produce positive social change by building capacity, resiliency, and retention through a long-term comprehensive professional development plan for inducting novice teachers.

Today's urban schools are composed of students from diverse cultural backgrounds and varying levels of academic readiness. At the same time, approximately 88% of teachers are White and middle-class. The dispositions of teachers have important educational ramifications. Teachers' beliefs structure the classroom atmosphere, influence perceptions regarding the abilities of students, and impact how they teach and expect students to learn and behave. In order to foster an accepting and productive learning environment, teachers must have cultural awareness. To ensure that all learners receive a solid academic foundation, teachers must be able to instruct dissimilar students. Special educators have been trained to work with students with unique, special needs, but the reality of today's demographics - and special education classrooms in particular - mandate that they also have the cultural knowledge to effectively serve diverse students. Perceptions and attitudes of elementary special education teachers regarding their cultural awareness and beliefs need to be explored. This study examined the cultural awareness beliefs of elementary special educators working in urban school districts located in southeast Texas. The research also needs to ascertain whether ethnicity or length of service effected such teachers' cultural awareness beliefs. Using the Cultural Awareness Beliefs Inventory (CABI) instrument, the investigator gathered self-reported data from 54 participants. The reliability and validity of the instrument were determined to be sound by previous investigators. The CABI contains eight major components: Teacher Beliefs, School Climate, Culturally Responsive Classroom Management, Home and Community Support, Curriculum and Instruction, Cultural Sensitivity, Cultural Awareness, and Teacher Efficacy. Data were analyzed using percentage analysis and one-way analysis of variance. The findings include: 1) Participants had favorable perceptions towards the School Climate, Culturally Responsive Classroom Management, and Cultural Awareness variables; 2) Participants had unfavorable perceptions regarding Teacher Beliefs; 3) In contrast to some previous research, it did not appear that teaching experience impacted cultural beliefs; and 4) Importantly, it was discerned that teachers' ethnicities yielded statistically significant effects on their cultural awareness and beliefs regarding African American special education students.

As the United States faces a critical teacher shortage, it is important to examine all factors that may contribute to the revolving door of teacher attrition. This study explored the climate of elementary schools to determine if there was a correlation between teacher attrition and school organizational climate. Three basic research questions were addressed: 1) Is there a relationship between school organizational climate and teacher attrition? 2) Is a change in campus leadership related to school organizational climate? 3) Is there a relationship between a change in campus leadership and teacher attrition? Thirty-seven elementary schools were examined in terms of their individual teacher attrition rates and their climate survey scores. The data utilized in this study came from one school district's climate survey and teacher attrition rates for the 2000-2001 school year. The findings of this study indicate that factors of organizational climate may predict teacher attrition rates. Specifically, instructiona support may be related to teacher attrition. Major components of instructional support include principal behaviors, respect for teaching and learning, and communication with administrators. Teacher attrition was not related to principal experience. Also, principal experience was not related to factors of school organizational climate.

Given issues in education concerning teacher shortages, the omnipresence of alternative certification programs and the growth of online programs in higher education, this study investigated teacher retention for 77 secondary education teachers who completed an online teacher preparation program in Texas. Teacher retention was examined from 2003-2013 and investigated the influence of factors such personal characteristics, working conditions and school setting characteristics on teacher retention. Data was collected electronically utilizing a survey instrument designed by two teacher education experts and I. A total of 21 variables and two open-ended questions were investigated using the survey instrument. Exploratory factor and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify a multi-factor model for teacher retention utilizing the participants' survey responses. These analyses yielded evidence of the program's effectiveness in preparing teachers for long careers. Specifically, the areas of program support, field experience, and classroom management were statistically significant factors that contributed positively to teacher retention. Additionally, variables outside the program, were examined. These factors included personal characteristics, working conditions, and school setting factors. The predictor model accounted for 56% of the variance; F (17, 54) = 3.015; p = < 0.001. In particular, working conditions contributed to 41% of the variance associated with the teacher retention model. A qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions was used to further examine decisions to remain in teaching. Support of administration, colleagues, staff, and parents was shown to influence teacher retention.

Teachers who are not adequately prepared to teach struggling students often seek employment elsewhere rather than be ineffective with those students. When teachers leave the classroom, this has a vast impact on student learning. For the past 9 years, a high school in the southeast United States for students at risk of not graduating has had an average annual teacher turnover rate of 31.25%, nearly twice the national rate of 15.9%. The purpose of this study was to learn the kinds of training and knowledge teachers believed would help them to succeed in teaching students struggling to graduate. Constructivist theory served as a framework for this qualitative case study design that sought to answer what are the needs of teachers of at risk learners, and learn the kind of support they needed. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 9 core teachers during the 2014-2015 school year and document analysis of professional development yielded data that were analyzed for emergent themes. A key theme was a perceived lack of adequate support from both the school and the district. Participants wanted help from psychologists and mental health counselors, professional development (PD) to develop content-specific strategies and alternative pedagogical strategies, and time for collaboration with colleagues. Based on study findings, 3 days of PD training were developed that will allow time for teachers and administration to work together. Results also provide research-based data that may be applicable to other schools and school districts serving a similar population. Supporting teachers of students at risk of not graduating should improve teachers' job satisfaction and retention, and improve student achievement, resulting in positive social change for society.

Teacher attrition has continued to be problem across the United States, especially in urban, high-need districts. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to identify the coping strategies of alternatively certified teachers in urban, high-need schools in order to understand how teachers overcome factors contributing to attrition. Research questions centered on the perceived challenges and stressors of alternatively certified teachers as well as the coping strategies that support their retention. The conceptual framework was based on Bronfenbrenner's theory of ecological development. Criterion sampling was used to identify experienced alternatively prepared teachers who had persisted for at least 4 years within an urban, high-need district. Data consisting of in-depth, semistructured interviews, online journals, and documents were coded inductively, using pattern coding for the purpose of explanation building across cases. Four primary themes related to stressors were identified: student behaviors and motivation, workload, administrator stress, and colleague stress. The 6 main themes related to coping strategies were social activities, professional learning, wellness and exercise, avoidance behaviors, school community support, and recreation and pastimes. The implications are that teachers may use the findings to gain strategies that can empower them to persist in challenging placements, and students may have increased access to experienced teachers. In addition, school administrators and alternative preparation programs may use the findings to provide teachers with proactive strategies for retention before they begin to experience stressors.

The development of new teaching standards for the state of California directly affects the development of undergraduate teachers, their preparation for the educational field and their decision to remain teaching in the field of education. As a result, innovated curriculum has been developed to meet the new standards. One course in particular is the Dean's Team course at California State University, Stanislaus. This study analyzed perceptions of teaching and perceptions of effective behavior elicited by participating in the Dean's Team course, and enhanced the Dean's Team student's decision to continue a career in teaching. Statistical results of case study research (and emails), an interview and survey results suggest that pairing with subject matter and content standards in the college classroom improves student leader skills and abilities to teach effectively in the elementary classroom as well as influencing the decision to remain in the field of education (teaching). Developing and implementing a Dean's Team course within the Liberal Studies curriculum is a way to improve the learning, the future teaching experience of undergraduate students and their decision to remain in the field of teaching.

The purpose of the study was to: (a) determine to what extent the formalized teacher induction programs (TIPs) in Shanghai are perceived to be helpful for first-year public primary school teachers; (b) measure teacher self-efficacy and anticipated job retention of first-year teachers in Shanghai public primary schools; and (c) examine the degree to which these perceptions of helpfulness, teacher self-efficacy, and anticipated job retention are associated. In this study, retention is defined as remaining in a public primary school in Shanghai. Shanghai TIPs are one-year long, mandatory programs for first-year teachers in Shanghai public primary schools. The conceptual framework of TIPs includes four main components (orientation, mentoring, professional development, and teacher evaluations) as found in Horn, Sterling, and Subhan’s (2002) high-quality teacher induction program component model. An on-line survey was completed by 408 participants who held a bachelor’s degree or higher along with a teaching credential and who were within their first year of teaching in a public primary school located in Shanghai. They provided their demographic information and responded to items on a perception of TIP helpfulness scale (on orientation, mentoring, professional development, and teacher evaluations), the Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (TSES-SF; for student engagement, for instructional strategies, and for classroom management), and an anticipated first-year teacher retention scale. Results of the study include: (1) Overall, Shanghai public primary school teachers perceived the level of TIP helpfulness to be relatively high; however, the levels of helpfulness varied across the four components (orientation, mentoring, professional development, and teacher evaluation); (2) Teacher self-efficacy regarding instructional strategies was reported to be higher than efficacy regarding classroom management and student engagement; (3) The majority of first-year teachers expressed agreement with plans to stay in the same position; (4) Perceptions regarding TIP helpfulness, overall, were not found to significantly correlate with teacher self-efficacy, overall; (5) To a limited extent (r= -.142, p < .01) self-efficacy scores negatively correlate with anticipated retention such that those expressing higher levels of teacher self-efficacy are those with lower anticipated teacher retention (as a public primary school teacher in Shanghai) scores, whereas a positive association was hypothesized; (6) The perception of overall TIP helpfulness was a statistically significant predictor of anticipated teacher retention; and (7) There is insufficient evidence to suggest that teacher self-efficacy mediates the effect of Shanghai TIP helpfulness, overall, on anticipated teacher retention. Additional findings, explanations, implications, and suggestions for future research are also discussed for Shanghai public schools.

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There has been a significant increase in the number of Students of Color attending Catholic schools in the United States in the last forty years. However, only 17% of the professional staff in Catholic schools nationally are Teachers of Color (with about 9.6% identifying as Latino/a) (McDonald & Schultz, 2020). The racial gap between Students and Teachers of Color is a social justice issue (Berrios, 2016), and yet, research on why Teachers of Color are choosing to teach in Catholic urban schools and the motivating factors that sustain their work in hard-to-staff Catholic schools is limited. This qualitative research study was conducted using a Critical Race Methodology (CRM) grounded (Solorzano & Yosso, 2002) in two overarching theoretical frameworks: Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Latina/o Critical Race Theory (LatCrit). Critical Race Testimonio was used as a counter-story method to document the experiences of Latino/a Catholic school teachers who served in under-resourced urban Catholic schools (Perez Huber, 2008). This study was guided by three research questions: (a) what factors do Latino/a teachers describe as encouraging them to choose and sustain their urban Catholic school teaching profession; (b) how do Latino/a teachers describe their racialized experiences in urban Catholic schools; and (c) how can urban Catholic schools enhance recruitment and retention policies and practices to diversify their teaching workforce? This study explored the racialized experiences and factors which motivated, sustained, and contributed to Latino/a Catholic school teachers’ choices to work in under-resourced urban Catholic schools and highlighted the authority of Latino/a teacher epistemology and ontology to understand that if the demographics of Catholic schools continue to shift, the recruitment and retention practices of Latino/a teachers must also change to meet the needs of all students in urban Catholic schools.