TeachUNITED schools continue to show amazing growth and excel for years after participating in the program. Our programs are designed to build internal capacity and leadership, showing immediate impact at the individual school and district level, as well as lasting changes beyond initial investment.
We recently reached out to four U.S. Administrators to ask their views on how the collaboration with TeachUNITED is helping with teacher retention in their schools and assuage the challenges they face in their rural community. While each of these Administrators are in the early stages of their partnership with TeachUNITED, the collaborative work has already proved to be immensely helpful and effective.
Historically, our community is reluctant to accept new ideas so it is vital that we continue to have open and honest conversations about where we have been and where we are going as a district.
We have a lot of potential to move our district forward and know that many teachers will be impacted by TeachUNITED programs and other district-wide initiatives. We are working to improve instructional practices, become more inclusive, and connect our practices to our competency-based grading. We know these efforts will lead to improvements in student outcomes and make our district a model for the rest of the state.
As with all small, rural schools, funding is always an issue. We have a limited budget that requires us to be creative with our spending and initiatives. Due to small class sizes, our school has multi-age classrooms at the elementary level with only one teacher per every two grade levels. Our work with TeachUNITED provided teachers with a collaborative learning environment where they can address common issues at their respective grade levels and content areas.
Professional Development programs like TeachUNITED help to keep teachers motivated and engaged in their work, which can lead to improved job satisfaction and retention by addressing some of the challenges that can lead to burnout and high turnover rates. By investing in strong teacher professional development and coaching, schools and districts can create a culture of continuous learning and improvement, and teachers can feel more supported and confident in their abilities, which can benefit both teachers and students. This support can help to reduce feelings of isolation, provide teachers with the tools they need to succeed, and help improve job satifsaction.
Our work with TeachUNITED has helped teachers to gain knowledge of best practices in meeting students’ 21st century needs through personalized learning and engaging teaching practices. They have a better understanding of how to use data to make informed instructional decisions to meet the individual needs of their students. Most important, through our work with TeachUNITED, we have built a network of teacher-leaders that will help to sustain growth and continuous improvement in our school.
We have a long history of poor academic performance and high teacher turnover. Our work with TeachUNITED has already shown positive results and is changing that dynamic. The excellent teachers who have worked hard in Claremont need to share their expertise with our newer staff to accelerate the change. By developing teacher leaders, we will be able to continuously coach our teachers to help them become successful earlier in their careers and stay in the profession.
We have a climate and culture that needs to be nurtured and rebuilt, which will come with consistency in school administrators. We have teachers that have felt unsupported and overwhelmed with too many new initiatives at one time. Our work with TeachUNITED is helping identify which one initiative would best help our school and put our school focus on that.
Programs like TeachUNITED help schools retain great teachers by supporting school administrators in finding out the reason why teachers are leaving the district and/or the profession. With the help of TeachUNITED, we will be able to support teachers. Teaching is hard, and the burdens of non-instructional responsibilities on top of the stress and pain of the pandemic have made teaching a lonely and exhausting job. Teamwork is more important than ever—whether that means breaking down the one teacher, one classroom model, creating teacher teams, or strengthening grade-level.
With the help of TeachUNITED, our teachers can do their work in the greater community and create an instructional culture and actual differentiated roles that don’t have teachers fighting an uphill battle alone.
Small and rural school districts face unique challenges and professional development partners should understand those challenges and provide side-by-side support and tailored solutions.
Serving as an extension of your staff, TeachUNITED coaches and program model equip you and your teachers with the right tools to accelerate student achievement while building your own capacity, commitment, and drive for school-wide transformation.
Subscribe to the TeachUNITED blog and receive updates when new posts are published.
###