Bellwether scanned the country for ideas and resources that leaders can use to address staffing challenges in their schools. This curated set of tools is intended to support school leaders who have the autonomy to manage the talent life cycle in their school community and are looking for practical ideas to strengthen their ability to recruit,…

Teachers in most American schools work in isolation, separated from other teachers, making it difficult to benefit from their colleagues' expertise or to share their expertise with others about how to help more students learn. However, a growing body of research shows that when teachers work more collaboratively, student outcomes can improve,…

The experiences that beginning special education teachers encounter moving from the pre-service environment into the first year of classroom teaching put them in a uniquely tenuous position that could lead to leaving the classroom after only a few years of teaching. District- and school-level administrators can influence the retention rates of…

Find out how to keep your best teachers on staff, and make sure your new teachers stay motivated beyond their first years on the job. In this book, leading educational consultant Franklin Schargel offers 162 easy-to-apply tips and strategies for principals and administrators looking to hire quality teachers, raise faculty job satisfaction, and…

This guide is intended to help the reader understand: the value of teacher induction programs designed to orient, support, train, and assess novice teachers; what makes induction programs work; the essential ingredients of an effective induction program; and how to get started improving efforts to support and assess novice teachers. Six sections…

This report presents suggestions for retaining beginning teachers. Research indicates that after 5 years, nearly half of new teachers leave teaching in the state where they first taught. Helping new teachers become veterans is an important step in addressing teacher shortages. New teachers tend to leave because of such factors as inadequate…

This digest examines the spread of mentoring in the United States, obstacles to realizing the potential of mentoring as a vehicle of reform, needed research, and selected issues of policy and practice. While the education community understands that mentors have a positive effect on teacher retention, the question of what mentors should do, what…

In this comprehensive manual, author Peter Gow helps schools become communities where teachers are nurtured "from raw recruits into seasoned, effective, and even beloved professionals." Peter Gow, academic dean at Beaver Country Day School (MA), lays out a step-by-step approach to building and keeping a strong faculty, a school's greatest asset.…

The paper examines issues in special education teacher attrition and reviews a variety of induction and mentorship programs to lessen the common isolation of beginning teachers. Statistics indicating the high attrition rate among beginning teachers, especially special education teachers are cited and related to lack of training and ongoing…

This book helps principals and all others who hire and retain teachers to sharpen their ability to hire better teachers for their schools, improve the ones who are already there, and keep their best and brightest on board. It demonstrates that the quality of the people on staff will ultimately determine the quality of the school and the success of…

This user-friendly tool for retaining quality teachers--especially those in special education--contains a framework for action that can be used to create a plan at the school or district level, or to strengthen existing plans. Target audiences include state and local administrators for general and special education, including superintendents,…

This report is the second of three annual reports to the Montana Certification Standards and Practices Advisory Council (CSPAC) on the effectiveness of mentoring new teachers. Specific research topics for the study were: (1) whether mentoring conducted under an exclusive one-on-one relationship has an effect on the new teacher's development as…

This report is the third of four reports on the Beginning Teacher Support Program (BTSP) on the effectiveness of mentoring new teachers. The paper focuses on technical aspects of the study. Study data are summarized in tables, including a comparison of teacher retention rates over the three years of BTSP, a summary of administrators' evaluations…

This book is intended to help teacher preparation educators, building level leaders, staff developers, and teacher mentors address school-work patterns in five critical areas that may impact teacher attrition and retention. It supports a view of professional development that fosters the active involvement of teachers in customizing their own…

The purpose of the final report on the Montana Beginning Teacher Support Program (BTSP) is to provide a comprehensive description of all phases of the program as it was conducted from 1992 through 1995. The purpose of the BTSP was to study the effect of a formal mentorship relationship between master teachers (mentors) and teachers in their first…