As I retire after teaching 23 years, the last 22 of them at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif., I’ve been reflecting on what has kept me content at our school and why I feel like I’m leaving on a high point. In other words, what did the school do to help ensure that I’ve been satisfied with my work, never considered leaving teaching or the school until I reached retirement age (and, even then, it was not an easy decision), and would unreservedly recommend it as a great place for educators (and for students and classified staff)?
Extraordinarily supportive—and stable—administrators
All our school’s administrators (except for one very, very brief exception) have been very supportive of teachers, students, and families, and were longtime teachers themselves. We’ve only had two principals during my career, and the most recent one was a vice principal under the first one (and the likely successor to our present principal in a few years is an existing vice principal now). They have always sought teacher input and invested heavily in teacher development through observations and teacher-requested training. They have invested heavily into restorative practices when it comes to discipline AND also deal with disciplinary issues when needed.
And this final quality is not to be overlooked. They have always done an exceptional job at protecting teachers from the consequences of bone-headed central-office decisions.
Small learning communities
Small learning communities (SLCs) are small schools within larger schools. For most of my career, our school was divided into six-and-eight SLCs, composed of a few hundred students and 20 to 25 teachers. These students would stay with these teachers during their entire high school years, and most of the teachers (apart from P.E. and science instructors, who had specialized classrooms elsewhere) were located in one geographical area of the school.
This structure created an incredible sense of intimacy for teachers and for students, with students often having the same teacher for at least two years of their high school career in the same subject, and often having the same classmates. If a student was having a particularly challenging day, or had done something particularly outstanding in one class, that teacher could go next door or across the hall and alert their other teachers, who could be prepared to be particularly supportive.
Unfortunately, the added costs of SLCs—keeping them “pure” meant that you needed more teachers since you couldn’t just fill every class with random teachers—meant that our schoolwide SLC structure was eliminated a few years ago. However, a version has been maintained for all 9th graders, and a lingering sense of community still permeates the school.
Strong mental health support to students
Our site administrators have always fought to have a reasonable counselor-to-student ratio and to bring in additional and outside resources. In addition to our regular counselors, we have an onsite counselor center with skilled staff who can provide genuine regular mental health counseling to our students. Educator Alex Venet describes the dangers of teachers becoming “trauma detectives,” and having this kind of support allows us teachers to avoid that trap and immediately refer students so they can receive needed support.
Strong commitment to inclusion
We have always had a schoolwide philosophy of looking at our students through the lens of assets, instead of deficits. For example, our school has a strong academic program for English learners, which includes specific content classes for our newest immigrants and direct efforts to include them in our International Baccalaureate classes. In the first part of my career, there was an effort by a couple of now-departed teachers to restrict enrollment in the International Baccalaurate class I taught (Theory of Knowledge) to only students who were taking all IB classes. That effort was quickly shot down by school leaders.
Being able to teach the classes I wanted to teach
For the majority of my career, I taught a very challenging double period “intervention” to students who had been identified as needing extra support in English class. That was OK, though I didn’t shed tears when it was discontinued in a restructuring of our curriculum. The rest of the day, however, I was able to teach the classes I really wanted to teach, which were with ELs and the IB Theory of Knowledge class. And, after the intervention class ended, I only had to teach EL and TOK classes.
Of course, at the time, there wasn’t a long line of other teachers who wanted to teach EL and TOK classes (that’s changed now that more and more educators have seen how much fun it is!). And, every school is different, and getting to teach the exact classes you want to teach is not a realistic goal for every educator in America.
But administrators can, as our school does, make an effort to learn teacher preferences and do everything possible to make them happen—as much as possible.
A fair salary and good benefits
Even though I’m listing this last in this post, it is certainly not last on the list of priorities. Without being paid a fair salary and being provided adequate benefits, most teachers wouldn’t be able to stay at a school even if it had the five previous advantages I’ve listed.
Apart from the practical consequences of not being able to be financially secure, worrying about money reduces the mental bandwidth that teachers have available for their students.
And our fair salary and benefits didn’t come easily. Getting them required organizing a strong union and waging strikes to make that happen.
Our school has a history of very low turnover, so “the proof is in the pudding.”
I hope others can learn from it.
Today’s post answered this question:
What are specific actions districts and individual schools should take to retain teachers?
In Part One, Erica Buchanan-Rivera, Diana Laufenberg, and Jehan Hakim shared their suggestions.
In Part Two, Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Andrea Terrero Gabbadon, and Dennisha Murff contributed their ideas.
Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo.
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