4 Ways to Support Your Exhausted Teachers
4 Ways to Support Your Exhausted Teachers
Chris Everett, Ed.D. Chief of Staff, engage2learn
Like many other education leaders, I have great concern for the current condition of public education in our country. The challenges facing adults who have dedicated their careers to the service of our future – our children – are many. Staffing shortages and the increasing logistical complexities are overwhelming and paint a perilous picture of our public school system. School leaders face tremendous pressure to find workable solutions before the great resignation leaves their classrooms empty.
When asked, “What percent of teachers quitting would create a cataclysmic drop in your organization’s ability to educate young people?” one superintendent responded, “One. One teacher quitting would hurt us in a big way.”
I’ve also read recently that the potential for the mass exodus of education professionals won’t necessarily be reality, as many in the profession can’t simply up and leave. This has the potential to leave us with an exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed workforce that shows up only because “they have to.”
This isn’t absolute, but it should be cause for significant concern and elicit intentional, strategic thinking from leaders who support the adults crucial to the children in their classrooms.
As a school leader, you may feel inundated with ideas but struggle to determine which ones could realistically be implemented and, more importantly, which ones are worth the time, effort, and funds. Based on our experience working with districts of all sizes and hearing from teachers firsthand through coaching conversations, here are four actionable ways to help teachers feel supported in a meaningful, authentic, and relevant way.
01. Don’t Fear Strategic Abandonment
It’s no mystery why teachers are overwhelmed. Teachers have always had a lot on their plates, and the pandemic ushered in even more instructional methods and initiatives that teachers have been required to implement. So what if it’s not about what we could do more of but rather what we could stop doing?
Steve Jobs once said, “Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. You have to work to get your thinking clean and simple.” While it’s easy to think something more can be done to solve a problem, maybe the answer lies in removing things that aren’t adding value instead. In other words, the key to reducing teacher overwhelm is not to have them do more things but to have them do more effective things.
At e2L, we often refer to the One Thing philosophy, in which author Gary Keller asks, “What is the one thing you can do, such that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?” Consider all the things teachers are asked to do and compare the ROI of those things to the toll on their mental and physical well-being. Then, identify and strategically abandon the ineffective, duplicitous, or simply unnecessary things.
ACTION: Complete an initiative inventory to see what you could take off your teachers’ plates. Not sure where to start? Utilize our free Initiative Inventory Workspace resource!
02. Make Data-Informed Decisions
We can all agree that the best decisions are data-informed decisions. This is especially true in education, where time and funding are precious.
While practices for utilizing student growth data to inform instruction currently exist, they often fail to include educator growth data. With research showing teachers have two to three times the effect on student achievement of any other school factor, it’s critical to analyze teacher growth data as a means of informing instruction in ways that will maximize student achievement.
Currently, the one-size-fits-all approach to professional development is not meeting the most pressing needs of individual teachers. A research study by TNTP showed only 3 out of 10 teachers demonstrated substantial improvement with typical professional development practices, while some even demonstrated a decline in performance.
There is a constant push for differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all students, so why shouldn’t the same philosophy be applied to professional development to meet the needs of all teachers?
The first step in personalizing professional development is utilizing a system that tracks individual educator growth data in order to identify strengths and areas in need of improvement. To make it easier for public education leaders to do just that, we recently launched the Reports Dashboard within eSuite®, our online educator platform. The dashboard provides leaders with an easy way to visualize data from different sources in one place and analyze and interpret that data to identify correlations between specific teacher behaviors and student achievement.
Determining the least effective instructional practices allows teachers to stop doing the things that aren’t working well, assess their level of proficiency in the things that have the greatest impact, and focus all of their efforts on growing in those practices. Utilizing better data will more effectively inform how you decide which initiatives to strategically abandon and which professional development practices will have the most impact on the overall well-being and capacity of your teachers.
ACTION: Analyze your classroom data to find correlations between teacher growth and student achievement. Don’t have a way to do that? Check out a free trial of our eSuite® platform with a new dashboard that does all of the data work for you!
03. Clarify Expectations
One thing teachers always lack is time. Providing teachers with clear expectations and targeted resources to help them meet those expectations will save them time in determining what they need to concentrate on. It also helps eliminate the frustration of trying to implement a dozen different things, when only a few of them are necessary for accomplishing instructional goals.
In short, setting clear expectations saves you, your teachers, and students precious time.
Within e2L, for example, one way we provide team members with clarity is through leveled rubrics. Each team member is coached on a rubric unique to our organization and with standards specific to operations or coaching. With a clear set of standards and the respectively defined behaviors, team members can self-assess, determine where they are on the rubric, and set goals on areas for improvement.
When coaching our partners, we also use e2L-curated rubrics specifically for teachers, leaders, and instructional coaches, as well as customized rubrics unique to each district’s standards. Our e2L 12 Life Ready Best Practices© rubrics consist of high-impact instructional strategies that provide classroom teachers with the essential tools to master the art of rigorous, standards-aligned instruction while maintaining a laser-like focus on student learning outcomes.
Here’s an example of a rubric for the Differentiation & Scaffolding best practice:
Differentiation, Scaffolding
Designs and facilitates opportunities for individualized learning.
Levels of Learning:
Resources & Learning Experiences
Curates and/or designs standards-aligned resources and learning experiences
Curates and/or designs a variety of standards-aligned resources and learning experiences that are engaging for learners
Curates and/or designs a variety of standards-aligned resources and learning experiences that are culturally relevant and challenging for varying ability levels of learners
Collaborates with learners to design a variety of standards-aligned resources and learning experiences based on student interests
Providing teachers with these clearly defined and codified instructional behaviors keeps the guesswork out of the design and facilitation of the desired learning experience.
ACTION: Define and codify instructional behaviors to provide your teachers with a clear roadmap of expectations. Be on the lookout for our CEO Shannon Buerk’s upcoming book, where she explains our proven process to do this effectively through designing a Buerk Rubric. Don't want to wait for the book? Click here to ask us a question or schedule a call with us!
04. Persist in Being Human-Focused
The real danger in the context of today’s unique challenges is the potential of forgetting that human beings are at the center of it all. As leaders, we must persist in remembering that the adults in our school systems are humans who are bearing the brunt of an incredibly difficult situation.
In a recent district leadership roundtable facilitated by our CEO Shannon Buerk, we brought key district leaders together to share ideas about supporting and retaining teachers in the current conditions. Several leaders shared many important ideas, but one critical thread rang through all of the shared sentiments: This is a human-centered endeavor, and we MUST stay focused on meeting the needs of the people in our care, both students and adults alike.
One superintendent offered sound advice that I feel is important to heed and share:” Be seen by your people. When you go to their classrooms and talk with them, ask them sincerely how they are doing. It may well be the most important thing we can do as leaders during this crazy time.”
ACTION: Attend our next Teacher Support & Retention Roundtable, a free and interactive virtual event hosted by engaged2learn (e2L) in partnership with FASA on March 9. Come ready to listen to and share with other academic leaders about:
1. Why teachers are leaving the profession,
2. What is and isn’t working when it comes to supporting teachers, and
3. How to retain top talent in the classroom.
Things may seem uncertain for the future of public education in these trying times, but there is hope. If we seize the opportunity to take intentional, timely, and effective action, we can turn the tide.
Dr. Chris Everett serves engage2learn as the Chief of Staff. In this role, he oversees all members of the e2L team and coordinates hiring efforts in order to most effectively meet the e2L staffing needs of our current and potential partners. Chris ensures that each e2L partnership is successful and that in the end, our mission is achieved with every district we serve. He has been a Texas educator for over 20 years, serving in multiple roles within the public school system, including teacher, athletic coach, campus administrator, district administrator, and a Regional Education Service Center Director. Chris has a doctorate in Leadership in Educational Administration from the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor and brings a wealth of experience and expertise related to leadership and systems thinking.
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