Kindergarten through Grade 12 (K-12) teachers with less than 10 years of experience are leaving the education profession at an alarming rate nationwide and have created fiscal and educational hardships in the profession. The early departures of new teachers have vast implications on U.S. education systems at national and state levels.…

This study investigated standard practices used by mentors participating in a new teacher mentoring program that encourages identified teachers to remain in the teaching profession. School districts nationwide spend time, money, and human resources addressing the significant turnover rate and the recruitment of highly qualified teachers. This…

Schools across America are filled with educators who are skilled in their craft but stressed with their work, which is leading to alarming rates of burnout, turnover, and attrition. Much of the existing professional literature addressing public education largely identifies financial limitations as the driving force behind these challenges, but…

A nationwide teacher shortage has been a problem in our country for many years. Teacher vacancies continue to be plentiful, but enrollment in teacher preparatory programs continues to decline. This study aimed to investigate low teacher retention in rural Alabama schools. Through the lens of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, this study examined…

Relative to the theme of this journal edition, "Leadership in a Time of Change," one of the most challenging changes in school leadership recently has been finding qualified teachers to teach in P-12 classrooms. Teacher turnover in P-12 schools has increased significantly (Simon & Johnson, 2015), contributing to the teacher shortage…

The severe teacher shortage in Alabama's rural districts negatively impacts student outcome and educational quality. The purpose of this study was to assess the challenges and coping strategies related to recruiting and retaining teachers in rural Alabama schools. The study's theoretical frameworks are Ryan and Deci's intrinsic motivation and…

Background/Context: School districts across the United States face persistent difficulties recruiting and retaining teachers (García & Weiss, 2019; Schmitt & deCourcy, 2022). Over the last decade, every state in the south has faced a growing teacher shortage, with some facing shortages in all grades and subjects (U.S. Department of…

The purposes of this study were to determine whether variables reported in previous research on teacher turnover could be reduced to a number of factors, and to determine how those resulting factors affected career longevity in band directors. Career longevity was defined as the total number of years teaching. Literature on teacher turnover was…

The purpose of this study is to identify the causes of first year teacher attrition and compile a profile of first year teacher drop-outs. Of 138 beginning teachers who returned a questionnaire concerning their reasons for not returning to their first-year teaching positions in Alabama's public elementary and secondary schools, 47.2 percent left…