The purpose of this survey research study was to determine if a relationship existed between mentoring for beginning elementary teachers and teachers' intent to stay in the teaching field. The key attribute analyzed was the significance of having or not having a mentor. Teachers' perceptions regarding mentoring were analyzed and teacher opinions of the most important elements of a mentoring program were discussed. Results indicated there was not a statistical significance between mentoring and teachers' intent to stay in the teaching field. The qualitative portion of the survey revealed that beginning teachers felt availability, accessibility, and receptivity of the mentor were the three most important elements of a mentoring program. Data from the returned surveys were processed through SPSS Version 11 using a t-test and an analysis of variance (One-Way ANOVA). Based upon the findings, specific recommendations are made to administrators and district level personnel. This cross sectional study was based on theories surrounding effective mentoring practices and job satisfaction leading to employment retention. Dr. Jeffrey Scott created the survey instrument and piloted it in West Alabama in 2004 where it was approved for use. Dr. Scott approved innovations made to the survey instrument. The study was grounded in the theoretical framework of Maslow's Needs Hierarchy and Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory. A total of 71 elementary beginning teachers, out of a total of 135 (52.5%) from ten school sites in a community in Central Florida, completed and returned the anonymous questionnaire that was mailed to them. The ten school sites included both urban and non-urban student population classifications.

Once considered managers of school buildings, principals have moved into the role of instructional leaders, charged with putting student learning first in their realm of daily responsibilities. The concept of transformational leadership helps foster the development of a school culture that includes student-centered interactions, an underlying sense of social stability, and student learning at its core. Principals lead their staffs in a multitude of ways. The extent of principal effectiveness as it relates to retaining teachers in school buildings is in need of exploration. Four issues related to principal effectiveness are addressed as supported by the literature: (a) educational leadership theory, (b) organizational culture in schools, (c) teacher mobility, and (d) effects of teacher mobility on school culture. Teacher retention at the local school builds stronger communities simply by fostering relationships that enable problem solving among colleagues, students, and parents. This dissertation looks at the role of the principal in developing a healthy school culture in order to provide descriptions of leadership practices, so their value can be assessed and debated. Data collection consisted of sixteen semi-structured interviews that constitute the source of this instrumental case study. By interviewing system leaders in two distinctly different districts and examining the perceptions of teachers in those districts, the researcher was able to understand the effects of the Georgia Vision Project and teacher retention at the local school level. Data analysis resulted in the central categories: respect, support, relationships, recognition, open door policy, and encouragement as ways in which principals can influence retention.

Much research has been conducted on what can be done to retain teachers in education. This study is an examination of what keeps teachers in high-poverty middle schools. The purpose of the study was to examine why teachers choose to stay in high poverty schools. According to Ed. Gov.(1999) high poverty schools are defined as schools that have 75% to 100% of students on free or reduced lunch. Eight teachers were interviewed from 2 high poverty schools located in the southeastern region of the United States. These teachers had been employed by their school for at least 5 years. Data were gathered and analyzed to reveal why teachers stay in high poverty schools even though the work can be extremely difficult. This study showed that the teachers interviewed feel working in a high poverty school can be more difficulty due to issues such as behavior and lack of parental involvement. However, rewards such as student growth and the love they develop for the students are worth the extra labor they put into their jobs. The good they find in their jobs seemed to outweigh the bad.

In 2007, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reported in their 2004-2005 Teacher Follow-up Survey that nearly 20% of U.S. teachers leave the profession after their first year of teaching and almost 30% leave after the fourth year of teaching. These percentages are even greater for mathematics teachers. Using symbolic interactionism, adult learning, and partnership as a theoretical framework, this ethnographic case study investigated and examined the factors that influenced second-career mathematics teachers to remain in the teaching profession and their experiences with instructional coaching. The following guiding research question and sub-questions were pursued in the study: Why have four second-career mathematics teachers remained in their role for 5 or more years? What are the teachers’ experiences with instructional coaching? How would they describe coaching? Which aspects of coaching do the teachers find least and most beneficial? How would you improve the coaching program? A purposeful sampling was used in the selection of participants. The four participants were African-American mathematics teachers; three women and one man. The participants are second-career teachers, and they all have been coached. The research is based on data collected from teacher narratives, participant observation, photo elicitation, and focus groups. Data were analyzed and categorized as follows: making a difference in a student’s life, teacher resiliency, job satisfaction, and support. Data analysis showed evidence of all four factors of retention for one or more of the participants, although the factors have varying degrees of influence.

This report gives an in-depth study of the relationship between effective school leadership and teacher retention. It reviews existing literature that establishes the connection between effective school leadership and lower rates of teacher turnover. The report then attempts to find the relationship among effective school leadership, teacher retention, and student achievement in New York City middle schools. The report also highlights the important processes and strategies that the New York City Department of Education employs in an effort to increase teacher retention. A closer look at The New Teacher Project’s 2012 Report, “The Irreplaceables,” redirects the report to recommend retention efforts that focus on retaining the city’s highest-performing teachers instead of using “blind” retention strategies. In the end, the report summarizes the political climate in New York City between the teachers’ union and the district and recommends four strategies that keep this relationship in mind. / text

In many critical subject areas our schools are facing a need for teachers, particularly in the "high-need" areas of mathematics, science, and bilingual education. Educators and researchers alike have identified teacher turnover as a major contributor to the challenge of finding and keeping highly-qualified teachers in American classrooms. The purpose of the three studies in this dissertation was to investigate the potential role of working conditions in explaining the turnover rates of high school science teachers. I used data collected by the Policy Research Initiative in Science Education (PRISE) Research Group during the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 academic years, from their random, stratified sample of 50 Texas high schools and their 385 science teachers. The first study focuses on the development of a rubric assessing individual science teachers' working conditions, which involved the examination of multiple data sources, including school master schedules and AEIS reports to determine the working conditions of 385 science teachers. Analyses from this study suggested that (a) science teachers from small schools experience tougher working conditions than science teachers from both medium and large schools; (b) veteran science teachers experience tougher working conditions than both induction and mid-career teachers; and (c) science teachers from lower minority schools experience tougher working conditions than science teachers from schools with higher MSEPs. The second study focuses on the relationship between high school science teachers? working conditions and their levels of job satisfaction. Findings included that (1) science teachers from small schools experienced tougher working conditions, even though they were more satisfied with their jobs; (2) veteran science teachers experienced tougher working conditions and were more satisfied with their jobs; and (3) science teachers from lower minority schools experienced tougher working conditions and were more satisfied with their jobs. The final study focuses on the relationship between high school science teachers' school size, MSEP, teacher type, working condition scores, job satisfaction scores, and retention status. Results of independent samples T-test revealed no significant difference in working condition scores for "stayers" versus "non-stayers." Pearson's correlation revealed school size and the experience level of the science teacher as significant predictors of working condition and job satisfaction scores. Results of the discriminant analysis revealed (a) working condition scores and job satisfaction scores as not significantly predicting science teacher retention; and (b) teacher type (beginning, mid-career, and veteran) as the only significant predictor of teacher retention.

A phenomenological study was conducted to identify the factors associated with job retention among teachers in secure residential treatment centers in Tennessee. Central to this investigation was the exploration of how residential teachers perceive they are supported in their position, how teachers in residential settings perceive the culture of the facility, and what factors are associated with teacher retention in secure residential settings. Through a series of fifteen interviews, common themes emerged from the coding that provided insight into these questions. Teachers who had worked in residential settings for more than five years seemed to have very strong internal belief systems that drove them and were rewarded by the successes of their students, despite what else might be occurring at the facility. Success for the teachers did not always seem to depend administrative support, but they relied heavily on their peers for support. Administrators may be able to improve teacher retention by focusing on these factors, as well as ensuring that education is a valued component of the residential program and that teachers are compensated on a level equal to their peers in public education. Suggestions for future research include quantitative studies to examine the differences between for profit and non-profit programs, differences in retention that depend on the size of the program, and an analysis of retention as it correlates to teacher compensation.

Managing teacher retention is important for ensuring that quality teaching and learning take place in schools. Principals play an enormous role in creating conditions that are conducive to educative teaching and learning in the school. If principals can ensure that conditions in the schools are conducive for job satisfaction, then most teachers would not leave the school. Teacher satisfaction ultimately leads to commitment in school work. The main aim of this study was to investigate the influence of leadership and management on teacher retention in the Tweefontein South Circuit schools in the Mpumalanga Province. The assumption was that if teachers are satisfied in their jobs, then they will be retained in the school. Teacher attrition is, in most instances, ascribed to poor working conditions such as work overload, poor interpersonal relations, poor salaries and lack of support from the school management team. Although educators employed in schools acquired the best training at universities or training colleges, they still struggle financially and have a lot of debts. To achieve the aim of the study, a qualitative research approach was followed to collect data through semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling was used to select participants with defining characteristics that make them the holders of the data needed for the study. Data was collected from principals, deputy principals, departmental heads and post level one teachers. The collected data was analysed and a thematic analysis was carried out to generate themes that addressed the study's problem. The responses from participants revealed that the school leadership comprising of the principals, deputy principals and HoDs encounter serious challenges in retaining teachers in schools. Findings revealed that SMTs should support teachers by involving them in decisions that enable teachers to experience job satisfaction. Although all school leaders try to motivate and support teachers not to resign through leadership, the motivation has yielded meagre results. There is absolutely nothing or little that school leadership can do to retain a teacher who resigns in order to access his or her pension fund after experiencing financial difficulties. Recommendations were that the school leadership should involve teachers in making decisions that will ensure teacher job satisfaction and that the department of education should also establish mechanisms in which teachers would be allowed to access part of their pension fund should they experience financial difficulties before reaching the retirement age. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Education Management and Policy Studies / MEd / Unrestricted

Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / Many urban schools struggle to retain their best teachers because of challenging work environments, poor salaries, and ineffective school leadership. The additional requirements of the No Child Left Behind legislation for teachers to be highly qualified and the increased academic requirements of raising students to a proficient level in reading and mathematics mean that these schools face additional challenges to retaining teachers. Little research has been done on teacher retention in relation to NCLB in urban schools, but the few studies available have suggested that NCLB has had a negative impact on teacher morale and retention in urban schools. The research project was a paired case study that examined teacher retention in four urban schools, contrasting two schools that showed improvement under NCLB in terms of student achievement with two schools that did not show improvement. This study used human resource data, teacher and principal interviews, and school improvement plans to answer the following three research questions: 1) Does the teacher retention rate remain constant as schools improve? 2) Is there a pattern of teacher retention in improving schools? 3) What do improving schools do to attract, train, and retain teachers? The results showed that all schools had increased levels of teacher retention from the beginning of the study until the end. Improving schools had slightly higher rates of teacher retention, especially among teachers who were determined to be desirable. There was some evidence that as student achievement rates rose in improving schools, so did the rate of teacher retention. Lastly, the findings suggest that schools that were improving were also schools that embodied many of the factors that teachers are looking for in a school, including strong school leadership, positive working conditions, and other supports for teachers new and experienced, such as professional development and mentoring. This study has several limitations, such as a small sample size and a limited pool of human resource data. The findings have important implications for urban school districts that are trying to retain quality teachers.

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine relationship of the distinct factors to PK-12 teacher retention in one Midwest school district. This study was an examination of multiple factors, including work environment, fit, compensation and benefits, leadership, performance management system, peer support and mentoring, that contributed to the retention of PK-12 teachers with different levels of education, certifications, experience, career plans, and military affiliation. The questions on the Teacher Retention Survey used a Likert-type scale to measure teacher perceptions about retention factors to address 8 research questions. For this study, I surveyed the population of 704 current PK-12 teachers in a public unified school district located in central Kansas using a non-random sample method. The unified school district is comprised of 14 elementary schools (grades PK-5), two middle schools (grades 6-8), and one high school (grades 9-12). The unified school district is located adjacent to a large U.S. Army installation and supports a culturally diverse educational environment with a majority of the district’s students being military-connected in some way. The survey was administered at the beginning of the 2019-2020 academic school year and resulted in 210 usable surveys collected with a 29.8% return rate. The results of the study showed that there were differences in how PK-12 teachers perceived the 6 dimensions of the Teacher Retention Survey depending on demographic groupings. Results indicated that there were differences in how teachers perceived fit, the evaluation process, and mentorship. There were also differences in how teachers perceived leadership and the evaluation process depending on gender. Teachers’ education level appeared to affect perceptions of the work environment and fit, and certification appeared to influence how teachers viewed leadership and the evaluation process. Teachers’ career plans seemed to influence perceptions of the evaluation process and mentorship. Military affiliation and teachers’ experiences of working in multiple schools or districts did not appear to affect perceptions about retention factors. By identifying factors that contribute to teachers’ decision to remain in the field, school leadership can attempt to make improvements to those factors to prevent voluntary attrition.